Gothenburg to host international conventions on multiple occasions

2015 was a record year in which Gothenburg hosted over 130 meetings and corporate events. Gothenburg is increasingly popular with organisers of international conventions. The European Society of Human Genetics (ESHG) recently elected to hold its Annual Meeting in Gothenburg on two future occasions.

1986 was the year when The Final Countdown topped the charts and Reagan and Gorbachev met in the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik. It was also the year when the Gothenburg Convention Bureau was founded.

The Bureau celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2016, and the year couldn’t have started better. 2015 was Gothenburg’s best year ever for meetings, with over 130,000 delegate nights. Many new events will be held here over the next few years, some of them more than once.

“Gothenburg is seen as an attractive destination. The fact that some events will be held here repeatedly attests to the high standard of our hotels and facilities and proves that we deliver what we promise,” comments Annika Hallman, Gothenburg Convention Bureau.

It has become popular for organisers of major annual international meetings to rotate between a small number of destinations. This makes the process more efficient and saves time and money.

One example is the Annual Meeting of the European Society of Human Genetics (ESHG), which will be held in Gothenburg in 2019 and then again in a subsequent year. 3,000 delegates are expected to participate in the four-day meeting. The ESHG meeting was first held in Gothenburg in 2010 and also took part in a site visit when the third tower of Gothia Towers Hotel opened in December 2014.

“It’s great working with the City of Gothenburg. They have a professional organisation with strong commitment and first class hosting. The Swedish Exhibition & Congress Centre is Europe’s largest and most heart-of-the-city meeting point with everything under one roof. But above all, Gothenburg is a wonderful city where meeting delegates feel very welcome,” says Jerome del Picchia, ESHG Executive Officer.

“Gothenburg was an easy choice. It’s a wonderful city for meetings, with many facilities in the centre and fabulous restaurants at close walking distance. The city is beautifully located by the sea.”

Another cause for celebration is that Gothenburg has been elected to host the Annual Meeting of the International Continence Society (ICS) in 2019. Gothenburg won almost half of the votes, the same number as the other two candidates together.

“Nine candidate cities applied and three of them were chosen to present themselves on the website in a short video. I think the video that Gothenburg presented was the deciding factor,” says professor Ian Milsom, Chairman of ICS (Sweden).

Facts, Gothenburg:

  • Sweden’s second largest city with 980,000 inhabitants in the greater city region
  • 12,000 hotel rooms, 10,000 of which are centrally located in the city
  • Gothenburg was awarded 6th place in the latest ICCA ranking of European non-capital cities
  • The Swedish Exhibition & Congress Centre, Europe’s largest fully integrated conference complex with 1,200 hotel rooms, is located in central Gothenburg
  • 90% of the city’s hotels and restaurants have environmental diplomas
  • 100 direct flights to Gothenburg Landvetter Airport. The airport is climate certified at the highest level.
  • According to the European MICE-visitor-price-index, the cost of staying in Gothenburg is lower than the average for European cities.

More about Gothenburg, City of Meetings: www.goteborg.com/en/convention-bureau/