Realized growth of business trips in Europe of 38% compared to last year

Croatian tourist agency this year it signed an agreement on cooperation on the implementation of special research "Portrait of European Meeting & Convention Travel", by which Croatia found among seven countries which participate in the collection and processing of the latest trends and indicators in the segment of business or MICE tourism in Europe. The Congress Exchange participates in the preparation of the report IMEX and agency MMGY Global, and the results of the first round of research conducted during May and June were published, while the start of the second round of research is scheduled for September of this year.  

The results of the first round of research show that 2023 is an above-average good year in terms of realized international business meetings and congresses with realized an increase of 38% compared to last year. The data also show that they are making a big comeback after the pandemic personal meetings, while they virtual and hybrid meetings still represented, but with a noticeable decrease in their popularity.

When we talk about Croatia, our country is located among top 15 European destinations in which the organizers of business meetings and congresses plan to organize a business meeting in the next two years. Croatia is in the select company of the most popular MICE destinations such as Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal, France, Austria, Switzerland etc., while the 15 most popular destinations are followed by countries such as Poland, Sweden, Hungary, Norway, Finland, etc.

"Croatia's participation in the implementation of this research gives us a detailed insight into the state and trends of business travel at the European level, i.e. we have access to valuable indicators related to meeting formats and the most sought-after places and locations of their holding. With this, we can also measure the impact of connecting leisure and business travel, which in combination, they significantly contribute to the further development of this segment of the offer, its economy, quality and sustainability", he said Kristjan Staničić, director of the Croatian Tourist Board.

A very interesting indicator from the research is general impression of the destination, which was rated as the most important factor when choosing the location of the business meeting, and there are other important factors such as traffic connections, distances of locations within the destination, security of stay in the destination, costs of organization of gatherings i dr.

Let us add that the main conclusions from the first part of the research are available on the agency's website MMGY Global.

Source and photo: Croatian National Tourist Board