With the pandemic behind them, analysts of the world's MICE business can get back to work on their rankings. After the ICCA and its ranking of the world's conference cities, Cvent took advantage of the IMEX trade fair in Frankfurt to unveil its 'top lists' of the world's meeting destinations and meeting hotels. A first since 2019. " After four long years, we are delighted to share this information again and provide a resource used by event organisers and hospitality professionals looking to stand out from the crowd and increase their MICE revenues." said Graham Pope, Cvent's Vice President of International Sales.
Cvent is one of the world's leading providers of meeting reservation technology, with a database of more than 300,000 hotels and event venues, a global network used by nearly 109,000 planners. Using its Cvent Supplier Network sourcing platform, Cvent has assessed the MICE activity of all these hotels, as well as that of more than 12,500 towns around the world. The result is a solid insight into the major post-covid trends.
Just like before the pandemic, London retained its top spot in Europe, now second only to Barcelona. Previously second in 2019, Berlin has fallen back to sixth place. Paris, on the other hand, closes the podium as before. Cvent's rankings also confirm Lisbon's momentum. Already in second place in the ICCA rankings, the Portuguese capital now appears in the top 10 of European meeting destinations, in fifth place.
In North America, Orlando is still the leading destination for meetings and conventions. But the rankings behind it have changed, reflecting a less buoyant dynamic for the major metropolises. Las Vegas and Chicago have been overtaken by Nashville and San Diego, while Dallas and Atlanta dropped to 6th and 7th place. Similarly, New York and Washington have dropped out of the top 10 US destinations.
Travel restrictions also penalised the MICE business of several major cities in Asia-Pacific. No real surprise there, Singapore still dominates the market, ahead of Sydney, Bangkok, Seoul and Melbourne. Gone are Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing, all of which have dropped out of the top 10. Hong Kong even fell from third place before the pandemic to 20th place in 2022.
The cards have also been reshuffled in the Africa/Middle East region, behind Dubaithe unfailing number one destination. Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa's two major metropolises, suffered a real setback, with Istanbul and Marrakech taking over. Abu Dhabi and Cairo remain the other MICE strongholds in the region.
As far as the top lists of meeting hotels are concerned, they reflect the overall attractiveness of all these destinations, with a predominance of hotels in Singapore, Dubai and Nashville in the rankings for their respective regions. This is less true in Europe, where no London hotel makes it into the top 10, dominated by W Barcelona.
