MEETINGS STAR AWARD 2014
BEST MEETING DESTINATIONS 2014

Editorial Board of Kongres magazine again prepared an overview of the top meeting destinations in the region, which have been evaluated in the context of the project KONGRES MEETOLOGUE.

Within the project we are discovering meeting destinations and compare them. To date, we have visited and evaluated 45 destinations in which we have throughly reviewed, analysed and evaluated:
– Natural and cultural factors
– General and transport infrastructure
– Tourist infrastructure
– Meetings infrastructure
– Marketing buzz

Each destination has also received a subjective grade. At the end of the year due to the many
changes and innovations were reassessed 
the destinations that they have already
evaluated in 2010 and 2011. As an additional criterion, we have taken into account this year’s ranking on the ICCA Country and City Ranking 2013 and Mercer’s global scale of quality of life in individual capitals.

Cities were divided into three categories:
– Large and medium sized cities with more than 150.000 inhabitants
– Smaller regional and local towns with less than 150.000 inhabitants
– Small tourist destinations with less than 15.000 inhabitants

Among larger cities in first places there were no surprises and in the lead remain Istanbul, Prague and Dubrovnik. The most advanced Belgrade, which due to new investments and improved accessibility ended up in fourth place.

Among smaller cities with a large assault the first is Dubrovnik, which is also in absolute terms the third best meeting destination of the region. To the tenth place then with minimal differences are listed famous tourist destinations, which are increasingly focusing on congress tourism. Most of these destinations and cities will be present at Conventa as exhibitors.

In absolute terms final results are:
1. Istanbul                         total mark 4,71
2. Prague                           total mark 4,64
3. Dubrovnik                      total mark 4,57

TOP 10 DESTINATIONS 2014

TOP 10 – 2014 SIZE OF CITY TOTAL MARK
1 ISTANBUL 8/146 14.160.467 BIG – WORLD 4,71
2 PRAGUE 11/121 1.272.690 BIG – EUROPEAN 4,64
3 DUBROVNIK 117/20 42.615 SMALL – REGIONAL 4,57
4 BUDIMPEŠTA 17/106 1.729.040 BIG – EUROPEAN 4,53
5 BELGRADE 44/52 1.546.812 BIG – EUROPEAN 4,42
6 ZAGREB 79/32 1.088.841 BIG – EUROPEAN 4,41
7 LJUBLJANA 84/31 282.994 MEDIUM – NATIONAL 4,40
8 BRATISLAVA 99/24 411.228 MEDIUM – NATIONAL 4,27
9 SALZBURG 219/10 148.521 SMALL – REGIONAL 4,20
10 KRAKOW 79/32 755.546 MEDIUM – REGIONAL 4,19