The Russian Convention Bureau is a one-stop point for event planners from abroad

The Russian Convention Bureau was established in November 2017. The founders of the organisation were: the Roscongress Foundation, the Russian Export Center (REC), International Foundation of Technology and Investment (IFTI), R&C Market Research Company.

The Russian Convention Bureau is a one-stop point for event planners from abroad - organisers and buyers selecting destination countries. The key goals of the RCB are promotion of Russia and its regions on foreign markets for attracting new international events to the country and creating a national brand of Russia as a favorable event-destination. The key benefits for international event planners provided by the Russian Convention Bureau: access to information on meetings facilities in Russia, assistance in finding local partners and suppliers, organisation of fam-trips and site-inspections, support of bidding procedures (incl. financial support of site-inspections), all services provided by the Russian Convention Bureau are free of charge.

"We are a large country that is well-known for its hospitality, rich in useful resources, new ideas and cultural heritage. And we are in a position to host major business and sports events with guests from all over the world – as the 2018 World Cup has just shown. Moreover, we have a versatile event infrastructure in various cities of the 85 Russian regions. Our country plays an active role in the events sector. 86 exhibition companies are members of the trade fair association RUEF; we have just under 3,500 venues more than 7 500 professional companies of the meetings industry. Almost 800 trade fairs and approx. 12,500 conferences take place in Russia every year". Alexey Kalachev, Director of the Russian Convention Bureau comments. "And what is more - Russia offers great value for money, on a high level. The costs of staging B2B events are much lower than in Europe. Also Russia is a very interesting destination for visitors. Being a multinational and multireligious country it has a rich cultural and historical heritage. The country is among the top-10 places in the world by the number of UNESCO World Heritage sites, with 17 cultural monuments and eleven natural reserves. Secondly, Russia has strong positions in various scientific fields and a wide industrial profiles of its regions. As our country is composed of 85 regions united administratively and territorially, and eight federal districts, the country offers a huge range of opportunities for business and cultural events organisation”.

Key industries of the Russian economy for attraction of the international associations’ events:

• Hi-tech production
• Agriculture
• Food products
• Machine engineering
• Chemical production
• Communications and telecommunications
• Housing construction
• Electrical energy
• Transport

We’d like to share some analytics on the Russian regions event potential based on the annual rating that has been regularly conducted by R&C Market Research Company since 2014. Moscow is excluded from the research, as a city with a higher level of development of the event industry.

St. Petersburg takes the first place being one of the key event centers in Russia. The city annually hosts major business events of international level. In 2018 St.Petersburg will host the international Congress of the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry (UFI).

Ekaterinburg ranks 2nd and became a candidate to host the Global Universal Exhibition “EXPO-2025”in 2017. By experts` calculations of the Organising Committee, in case of victory, the Universal Exhibition will be attended by about 14 mln. guests from different countries between May and November 2025. Moreover, the region focuses on improvement of the specialized infrastructure necessary for the full development of the event industry. The construction of the Congress Hall at the site of the IEC “Ekaterinburg-EXPO” that meets international standards and has a capacity of 4.5 thou. people is on the way.

The third, fourth and fifth places are given to Sochi, Krasnodar and Kazan, as it was a year ago. The Republic Convention Bureau began its work in the capital of Tatarstan in 2017, it is aimed to promote business tourism and attract investment to the region. Among the cities included in the top 10, Ufa significantly strengthened its position, rising from the 11th to the 8th place. The Convention Bureau of the Republic of Bashkortostan in the current year carried out active work on potential event promotion of the Republic, its result, in particular, was winning the bid to host the 2021 Congress of beekeeping associations “Apimondia” and the exhibition “Apiexpo”.

The last in the top-10 is Chelyabinsk; the plan is that the city will hold the major international sports and business events: the Junior Hockey World Cup in 2018, the SCO and BRICS summits in 2020.

The study showed that regional administrations pay increased attention to branding of the territories. In particular, they engage in creation and implementation of territory brands in Nizhny Novgorod, Voronezh, Irkutsk, Tyumen and Ryazan. Experts think that in the future it will allow the cities to strengthen their positions in Russia’s event potential rating. Among the cities that are outside top 20 but were also evaluated in the event potential study, positive tendencies were noted in Khabarovsk. In 2017, the government of Khabarovsk territory announced development of the “Concept of Exhibition, Fair and Congress Activity until 2025”, which testifies to interest of local authorities in region’s event industry development.

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