Always new, always Berlin!

Berlin – hardly any other city has experienced such a moving story, hardly any other city has changed so quickly, especially since the fall of the Berlin Wall almost three decades ago. The central location in Europe and the wide range of modern hotels and unusual locations offering good value means that Berlin inspires event organisers and participants who come for conferences, conventions, and incentives from around the world, in every season, year-round. Berlin is international, creative, and open-minded and inspires and attracts talent from all over the world.

Actively discussing the future in Berlin
The city is now considered a major centre for science and start-ups in Europe and is a sought-after location for events that deal with the global future. Berlin's MICE industry not only offers high-quality service, it is also closely linked to the city's technology and science scenes. These include world-renowned universities, more than 22 technology parks, and some 2,000 start-up companies. This environment makes the city an ideal venue for future-orientated events.

New service for event planners: convention.visitBerlin.com
The BCO is also presenting a new website at The Meetings Show in London: convention.visitBerlin.com. It offers a variety of tools that make it an essential tool for event planning. The Meeting Guide Berlin is integrated into the new site. This extensive search enginelists some 360 offerings which event planners can select from for optimal, easy planning of their next meeting, convention, or incentive.

The new convention.visitBerlin.com site also offers a convention kit, comparable to a shopping basket on e-commerce sites: planners can put the information they need to plan, organise, and execute their events into the kit and then download it directly for later reference. They have access to an extensive selection of Berlin-related images and texts, restaurant recommendations, convention statistics, and presentations about the German capital, among other highlights.

Also new is the Congress Calendar that lets users filter events by scheduled dates and industries through 2020. The calendar also contains selected Berlin highlights for the coming year. The new “Berlin Meetings” blog provides inspiration and practical tips for event organisers.

Another completely new service from the BCO is the Berlin Speakers Pool which helps event organiser find suitable high-calibre speakers, local experts, and moderators for their programme to further ensure successful and inspiring events.

2016 statistics: Number of meetings and events in Berlin on the rise

More than 11.5 million participants traveled to approximately 137,500 events last year in the German capital (both +2 per cent). 27,500 events of an international character were held in 2016, an increase of 500 events compared with the previous year. Berlin is a popular location for events that address issues related to the future. 16 per cent of Berlin’s events are held by the ‘medicine, science and research’ industry (up from 12 per cent in 2015). Conferences dealing with the IT, electronics and communication industries come in second place with 13 per cent. These figures come from the latest conference statistics from the Berlin Convention Office of visitBerlin.

More information: convention.visitBerlin.de