Scheduled to begin to work at the beginning of 2003 Hamburg establishs a Hamburg Convention Bureau to focus and implement business development efforts.

“Hamburg is lagging the field in international congresses,” Hermann Hanser, head of the PCO agency, CPO Hanser Service, which conducts part of its operations there, notes.

The city on the River Elbe does not capitalise enough on its enormous potential, he adds. Experts are calling on Hamburg, Hanser says, to do more to attract top-notch, international congresses.

After Berlin, Hanser explains, Hamburg is the second major German congress destination, rivalling Munich, but most of the events are from Germany, at best with international participation.

“Hamburg has not done enough in the international congress sector,” Hanser criticises. “That Copenhagen should have taken over as the top-ranking location in the North Sea and Baltic region is particularly annoying.”