More than 1 million international convention participants in Berlin

Berlin, 14 August 2018 The Berlin convention industry concluded the first half of 2018 positively: 5.08 million participants (+2.4 percent compared to the previous year) came to Berlin to attend 65,790 events (+2.8 percent) in the first six months. For the first time, more than 1 million international guests travelled to conferences and congresses in the German capital, an increase of ten percent. This is shown in the current convention statistics* from visitBerlin.

"The Berlin conference and convention market continued to grow in the first half of the year," says Burkhard Kieker, Managing Director of visitBerlin. "The industry has grown to be a reliable size for Berlin. More and more organisers around the world are taking an interest in the German capital as a convention metropolis."

The biggest foreign markets include the UK and the USA. The conference and congress travellers generated 3.98 million overnight stays in Berlin. This is an increase of two percent over the previous year.

Medicine and digital are the top industries

The most important sector in the Berlin convention market is medicine, pharmaceuticals, and healthcare with a share of 20 percent. Political and public institutions are in second place at 14 percent, followed by the IT and digital economy sector (13 percent). The largest medical congresses in the past six months were the German Cancer Congress with more than 11,000 participants and the annual meeting of the Federation of European Neuroscience, which 8,000 physicians attended in Berlin. The re:publica in May and the TOA Tech Open Air Festival a month later attracted 8,000 and 20,000 IT experts respectively.

The Berlin Convention Office: Providing impetus for Berlin as a congress destination

The Berlin Convention Office at visitBerlin actively contributes to this success. The official congress office of the capital promotes Berlin worldwide. The city's positioning among the top 5 of the International Congress and Convention Association for more than ten years is one of its greatest successes.

Congress highlights in the second half of the year

Berlin is expecting the largest congress of the year in the second half of 2018: Around 18,000 diabetologists from the EASD society will attend the annual meeting in the German capital (1-5 October, CityCube Berlin, easd.org). An anniversary is imminent in mid-October: The World Health Summit will be held in Berlin for the tenth time. Around 2,000 doctors, scientists, NGOs, industry representatives and politicians will then discuss the major global health issues (14-16 October, Kosmos, worldhealthsummit.org). At the end of the year, 9,000 physicians and scientists for psychiatry, psychotherapy, psychosomatics, and neurology will attend the DGPPN Congress in Berlin (28 November - 1 December, CityCube Berlin, dgppnkongress.de). The international culinary elite will attend the Foodsymposium Chefdays (3,000 participants, 1-2 October, Arena Berlin, chefdays.de).