When the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) was established in 1963, international association meetings were few and far between. Now, 55 years later, they're a significant asset to local and national economies around the world.
So illustrates ICCA in its newest report, "A Modern History of International Association Meetings - Update: 1963-2017," published today to celebrate the global association's 55th anniversary.
Between 1963 and 1968, the report reveals, ICCA counted just 1,718 international association meetings -- association meetings that are held on a regular basis, have at least 50 delegates and rotate between at least three countries. Between 2013 and 2017, it counted 65,182 such meetings.
"The number of international association meetings doubled every 10 years from 1963 to 2013. According to the current data, this exponential growth trend seems to have slowly transcended into a more mature, yet still solid, growth pattern in the last five years," reports ICCA, which charts similar growth in ICCA membership and in meeting attendance. The former grew from seven in 1963 to 1,055 in 2017 while the latter grew from 2.18 million to 24.72 million in the same period.
Meanwhile, the average meeting size has decreased from 1,263 to 409 -- although more meetings are now being held on a more frequent basis.
ICCA attributes international association meetings' performance to advancements in science, health care and technology. "The continuation of the robust growth in the number of the international association meetings is a direct indication of the market's role as a continuing force for global progress. Therefore, the parallel between the growth of association meetings and progress in the fields of science, healthcare and technology is no coincidence," it reports. "Association congresses are largely driven by advances in these fields; the unprecedented levels of discovery and innovation that are the hallmarks of recent decades are giving birth to entirely new associations and conferences, which are in turn stimulating further advances, new business opportunities and fresh insights."
Although it looks back at the history of international association meetings, the true purpose of ICCA's report is to look forward at the future of such meetings. To that end, the report's highlight is case studies from ICCA's Incredible Impacts Program, created as a platform for international associations to demonstrate their positive social impact.
"The results of our 55-year advocacy report demonstrate how new avenues of possibility are opening up for our industry with this new phase of growth; to ensure our industry's continued longevity, we must adapt to any upcoming challenges that rapid societal developments will bring," said ICCA President Nina Freysen-Pretorius. "The submissions we have received for our Incredible Impacts Program show the innovative nature of our association sector colleagues and demonstrate that our industry will always play an important role in solving complex societal challenges."
"A Modern History of International Association Meetings - Update: 1963-2017" is available for complimentary download from ICCA's website.
