Congress tourism starts again, in 2023 the recovery of the gap with 2019

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The conference and corporate events industry in 2022 has been struggling to find a way to restart. Last year, almost 304,000 congresses and business events were organized in Italy with a +251% compared to 2021. A total of 21.2 million people took part (+362%) and attendance achieved a +366 % and reached 31.7 million. The sector recovered almost three quarters of the events of 2019, the last year of “normality” before the pandemic. These are the data from the Italian Congress and Events Observatory (Oice), a research promoted by Federcongressi&eventi carried out by the High School of Economics and International Relations of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart – Aseri. 2023 saw the accentuation of the improvement and in the light of the trend seen in the first half of the year, the gap with 2019 will be recovered and perhaps overcome. The prospects for the trend in turnover are also good: over half of the offices expect an increase in revenues in 2023 compared to 2022. «These data and the signals from the market are very positive, but this does not prevent us from being aware of how much the historical moment is complex, further highlighting the ability of the Italian MICE to be resilient, proactive and proactive – warns Gabriella Gentile, president of Federcongressi&eventi -. To encourage the growth of the meeting industry in every area, we continue in our mission of enhancing the identity of the sector and providing concrete support to operators so that the development of individual companies increasingly coincides with the development of the entire sector and vice versa».

Attendance and location

Last year, companies were the main driver of the sector: 53% of the events were corporate such as product launches, conventions and meetings, those of medical-scientific associations are worth almost a third of the market while those of institutions account for the remaining 16 %. It should not be forgotten that in the first months of 2022 health restrictions affected the origin of the participants: thus almost two thirds of the events involved people from the same region. For the rest, 28.5% had a national audience and 8.3% international. As far as the venues used are concerned, conference hotels accounted for the lion’s share, hosting 77% of the events. Institutional headquarters 9%, unconventional spaces 6% and historic non-hotel residences, including abbeys, castles, old inns and farmhouses, historic palaces, historic villas 2.5%. Congress centers and congress fair venues hosted the remaining 3.4% of the events. According to the Observatory, hotels respond specifically to the needs of those who organize meetings, training courses and conventions, while congress centers with their exhibition spaces, plenary hall and subcommittee rooms cater to the needs of association congresses.

Italy on the podium of business tourism

Although 2022 was the year of the restart, Italy conquers the podium in the business tourism market. «A segment in whose growth Enit constantly invests. Italy linked to business tourism climbs the Icca (International congress and convention association) world rankings: it is third globally and second in Europe with over 520 meetings after Spain (528) and the USA (690) firmly in first place ( Enit on ICCA data) – explain Ivana Jelinic, president and CEO of Enit with Sandro Pappalardo, director of the board of Enit -. In 2022, around 85% of meetings were held face-to-face, around 9,000 out of a total of over 10,500. Rome and Milan are in fourteenth and eighteenth place with 79 and 66 respective meetings, while in the European ranking they both rise by one position. The travels of the future increasingly combine leisure and business. Already in 2021 there was a recovery in the business segment, which grew by +31% compared to 2020 levels, when global spending on corporate travel had fallen by -56% compared to 2019″.