The Finland Convention Bureau (FCB) has been carrying out a pioneering study of the entire Finnish meetings market…
The Finland Convention Bureau (FCB) has been carrying out a pioneering study of the entire Finnish meetings market. The first year of this survey is now in its final metres.
The research will provide for the first time concrete information about the number and type of participants in all kinds of meetings held in Finland, including international association meetings, corporate meetings and other international meetings, and all domestic meetings. The FCB has previously collected data only about international association meetings.
An important part of the research is to find out the impact of the meetings market on economy and employment.
The data is being collected from a total of 780 commercial conference venues throughout the country. This number represents 70 percent of the total meetings capacity in Finland and includes all the major venues. The participating conference venues have reported their statistics on a monthly basis since January 2004. Meetings that are held at the non-commercial meeting facilities, e.g. at universities are not included in the statistics.
The study is conducted by Taloustutkimus Ltd., market research company in Finland.
Over 200,000 participants at international meetings, January-September
According to the latest preliminary report, Finnish meetings have hosted a total of 3.3 million participants, of which 230,200 (7 percent) have been participants at international meetings. Altogether 77,500 meetings were held during this period.
The FCB will continue to gather statistics and carry out research about international association meetings as a special segment. The number of participants at these meetings has varied annually between 50-60,000.
In the pioneering meetings market survey, all meetings with at least 10 participants are included. The criteria for international meetings require that at least 40 percent of participants arrive from outside of Finland. For association meetings, participants must also represent at least three different countries.
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