Vienna has successfully acquired three major international congresses that will be held at the Messe Wien Exhibition & Congress Center, the Austria Center Vienna and the Hofburg Vienna in the years 2010, 2011 and 2013.

In 2010 the European Association for the Study of the Liver, which held its fi rst meeting in Vienna in 2006, will be holding its congress at the Reed Exhibitions Congress Center from April 13 through 18. The association’s second “appearance” in Vienna was decided upon at very short notice after the original destination became too small for around 7,000 delegates who had already  registered  for the congress. Thanks to the smooth cooperation  between  the Vienna Tourist Board’s Convention Bureau, the local hotel trade and Messe Wien Exhibition & Congress Center, it was possible to react fast enough to secure this event for Vienna.

Also for the second time, ISMB/ECCB, the joint meeting of the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) and the European Conference on Computational Biology is returning to Vienna. 1,500 to 2,000 scientists will focus on this topic from July 17 through 20, 2011 in the Austria Center Vienna. Steven Leard, conference manager of the International Society for Computational Biology which is organising this conference in Vienna, commented on the reasons for coming back to Vienna:

"In 2007 our experience with the Austria Center Vienna and the Viennese hotel industry were so excellent that returning to Vienna was obvious. Another argument was the additional wish to experience Vienna as city again, the survey amongst the attendees which was conducted in 2007 showed that about 78% would be happy to return to Vienna."

A combined conference has been booked at the Hofburg Vienna from June 30 through July 3, 2013. The International Society for Sexually Transmitted Diseases Research  (ISSTDR) and the International Union against Sexually Transmitted Infections (IUSTI) will be holding a joint congress, where to 1,000 researchers are expected to travel to Vienna for. Vienna was able to win the event in the face of competition against Budapest, thanks to, amongst others, to a convincing presentation given by Professor Angelika Stary, Chairperson of the Sexually Transmitted Diseases and Dermatological Microbiology project group of the Austrian Society for Dermatology and Venerology, and her deputy Claudia Heller-Vitouch.

According to Christian Mutschlechner, Director of the Vienna Tourist Board’s Convention Bureau, these three events represent a total of around 50,000 overnights for Vienna and will contribute some 25 million Euros to the Austrian gross domestic product.