The International Congress Center Berlin (ICC Berlin) has received the World Travel Award for the sixth time in a row.
Europe’s largest conference centre was voted the winner in the category of World’s Leading Conference & Convention Centres.
Once again the ICC Berlin received the world’s most coveted award for congress venues.
This was presented in recognition of the building’s multi-functional features, but also honoured the team of the Congress Division for successfully organising and hosting conferences.
Raimund Hosch, Chief Executive Officer of Messe Berlin: “The fact that the ICC Berlin has received this highly coveted award is proof once again of the company’s successful business approach. The mega-sized conferences in the ICC Berlin result in foreign visitors boosting consumer spending in the city by over 120 million euros a year, representing a substantial share of direct tax income in Berlin."
"Despite the fact that maintaining the ICC Berlin is very costly, macro-economic considerations alone warrant running a large congress centre in the city.“
He added that the congress centre was indispensable for holding conferences accompanying trade fairs, which promoted the city worldwide and considerably strengthened Berlin’s position as a centre of industry and science.
Conferences are behind a large share of business travel, the most important market segment of the entire tourism industry. In 2004 the success of the ICC Berlin also contributed to an upturn in Berlin’s tourism industry.
In the same year the ICC hosted a total of 585 conferences with more than 174,000 participants, more than half of whom (100,000) came from outside Berlin.
More tourism industry experts took part in the vote than ever before, with a majority of some 180,000 from around the world, among them members of agencies, hotels, airlines, tourism centres and other tourism institutions voting for the flagship of the Berlin congress industry.
The World Travel Award is presented each year by the London-based media concern World Travel Awards Ltd. and is regarded as the Oscar of the travel industry.
Image: International Congress Center Berlin
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