The 2009 annual ICCA Congress & Exhibition taking place from 7-11 November in Florence Italy, officially broke the record for the number of registered attendees. With more than four weeks to go a record-breaking attendance of 847 delegates from 66 countries are booked in. The previous record was 814 delegates for the 2007 ICCA Congress in Thailand.
ICCA CEO Martin Sirk: “The 2009 Congress will feature our biggest and best choice of sessions ever. The ICCA Congress education programme is custom-designed every year, and features a mix of speakers including top corporate and association meetings clients, expert business speakers from outside the meetings industry, and of course a selection of some of the most experienced ICCA members. Our speakers are drawn from all regions of the world, matching the global mix and interests of our delegates. Each year we invest more and more in our speakers, and strive to create a programme that will be fresh, thought-provoking, strategically-oriented, and packed with new ideas for improving your personal performance and your organisation’s bottom line.”
Sirk continues: "We have strategically positioned ICCA as the specialist expert association for the association meetings market, and as a result have seen membership growth continue over recent months despite all the turmoil in world markets – 85 companies joined ICCA so far in 2009. We believe the main reason for this performance is that more and more suppliers have realised they need to take the international association meetings market more seriously."
