U.S., Paris Are Most Popular Destinations for Association Conferences

ICCA-paris — Paris topped the ICCA city rankings for the second year in a row.

The United States and Paris have retained their top spots for hosting large association conferences, according to the newly released rankings from the International Congress and Convention Association. The U.S., which has held the number-one country position for more than two decades running, hosted 934 such conferences in 2019. Germany came in second place (714 meetings), followed by France (595), Spain (578), the United Kingdom (567), Italy (550), China (539), Japan (527), the Netherlands (356) and Portugal (342).

In ICCA’s city rankings, Paris topped the list for the second year in a row. The City of Light hosted 237 international association meetings in 2019. The French capital was followed in the rankings by Lisbon (190 conferences) and Berlin (176). Barcelona (156), 2017's top city, came in fourth for the second year in a row, and Madrid (154) came in fifth. Rounding out the top 10 were Vienna (149), Singapore (148), London (143), Prague (138) and Tokyo (131).

All qualifying meetings drew at least 50 attendees, take place on a regular basis and rotate their selected destination among at least three countries. For this year's ranking, ICCA captured data from 13,254 of these events, all of which took place in 2019. Following are the top 20 destinations in each category.