A recent market survey has shown that the FMC Center for congresses in Milan and Villa Erba in Como, both managed by Fiera Milano Congressi, are two of best-value structures in Europe.

Results of a market survey regarding rental costs at European congress centres were published in February in the latest number of the English magazine Meeting & Incentive Travel.

This survey compared costs charged by convention centres for a one-day event for 500 people, including technological equipment and catering services.

The two congress centres managed by Fiera Milano Congressi passed with flying colours: the Milan FMC Center emerges as being the most economical in Europe for the same quality of service and Villa Erba, managed by Fiera Milano Congressi since January 2006, is the third most competitive centre after Vienna.

There are numerous appointments on the busy FMC Center calendar, which already has confirmations for international conventions until 2011; the structure hosts all manner of events from large medical congresses to international and company conventions.

The first in chronological order is the 28^th ICOH International Conference on Occupational Health, whose first edition was held in Milan exactly 100 years ago.

In 2007 it will host the ECR – Europe Conference & Marketplace and the EWEC, the European Wind Energy Association convention: events with from 3,000 to 4,000 delegates. Appointments scheduled so far for 2008 are the European Association of Urology convention, the European Association for the Study of the Liver convention and the HFM – Heart Failure Meeting, with expected delegate numbers of 9,000, 4,500 and 4,000 respectively.

The European Society for Medical Oncology congress in 2010 has also been acquired recently, which will bring 10,000 delegates from all over the world to Milan.

Two locations are managed by Fiera Milano Congressi, the company belonging to the Fiera Milano group, Italian leader since 1994 in the management of congress and convention premises: the FMC Center and Villa Erba.

The FMC Center for congresses in Milan, with a simultaneous capacity of 25,000 participants, offers 36 rooms from 10 to 2,000 places, plenary meeting areas for 5,000 people and multi-functional areas, in total covering 85,000 square metres.

The FMC Center is today the biggest congress centre in Italy.

The FMC Center can boast advanced technological facilities (including Wi-Fi Internet access at 8 Megabytes per second) and extremely flexible spaces: modular rooms that thanks to mobile walls can be altered in just a few seconds to satisfy any need.

The FMC Center thus establishes itself as the ideal location for large congresses and conventions and smaller seminars, or even for events such as gala dinners or fashion shows: the Chamber of Fashion chose it as the venue for its shows.

Since January 2006, Fiera Milano Congressi has also managed the Villa Erba Congress Centre on Como Lake, adding to and varying the products and services on offer. This complex, ideal for events up to 1,500 delegates, combines a cutting-edge structure and location that is easy to reach from Milan with the beauty of a place that offers good hotel accommodation at competitive rates and numerous historic villas for hosting refined evening events.

“Since 2002”, says Maurizio Lupi, CEO for Fiera Milano Congressi, “we have invested 15 million Euros in the creation of the FMC Center, the leading congress centre in Italy. We have relaunched Milan on the closed circuit of metropolises chosen by meeting planners as locations for big international congresses.”

“And we have shown that this business can be profitable: we closed the last financial year (2004-05) with an income of 12.6 million (85% of which was brought in by pure congress activity, in other words not induced by trade fairs) with a net result of 875 thousand Euros”.

“By now we participate regularly and with discreet success in all the calls for tender for major international congresses”, adds the Fiera Milano Congressi president, Giuseppe Zola.

“The nine main appointments that we hosted in 2004-2005 attracted 41 thousand people, producing ancillary business for the city calculated at 100 million Euros (according to data from the CVB - Conventions and Visitors Bureau in Vienna, a foreign delegate in fact spends an average of 650 Euros in the city).”

“The nine main events of 2005-2006 alone lead us to estimate 36-37 thousand people. We are by now a great reality and a feather in the cap for Milan. Not only, we already have congresses scheduled until 2011 with a total of a further 36,000 delegates. The Milanese people and institutions would do well to realise this”.

Fiera Milano Congressi is strongly passionate about its city, which it proposes and promotes as a destination for international congress tourism. For this reason it has always been very attentive to those initiatives that improve the image of Milan and has therefore decided to become, for example, official partner of the Stramilano half marathon.

Not only. Fiera Milano Congressi has always been forward-moving, but there are no prospects without preparation. This is why Fiera Milano Congressi has decided to finance the merit award for the best students on the Tourism Management Degree Course run by the IULM.