The International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) has published its country and city rankings for 2006, with one or two surprises.

For the third year running, the USA and Germany are at number one and two respectively, measured by the number of international meetings organised in
2006. The UK and France climb one place each to third and fourth respectively. This is at the cost of Spain which is now ranked fifth. With Italy now in sixth, compared to seventh in 2005.

For the first time, a Latin American country is represented in the top
ten – with Brazil in seventh place in 2006. Austria (eighth) and Australia (ninth) have swapped places from last year, and The Netherlands drops to tenth.

This years top ten cities, sees Vienna on top. Paris is up four places
to number two. Singapore (third), Barcelona (fourth) and Berlin (fifth) all drop one place. Budapest (sixth) and Seoul (seventh) stay the same while the top ten s graced for the first time by Prague (eighth) and Copenhagen and Lisbon, (ninth-equal).

The full ICCA Statistics Report for 2006 will be released in early June and
will be available free online to ICCA members and for sale to non-members.

www.iccaworld.com