Congress tourism restarts. OICE data

The industry of congresses and events restarts. After the long forced stop due to the safety regulations imposed by the pandemic, the congress tourism sector is making up for lost time. Confirmation from the data of the OICE of Federcongressi&eventi

In 2021, a total of 86,438 events in presence or in hybrid format were carried out in Italy. That is, with an increase of + 23.7% compared to 2020. There were 4,585,433 participants in attendance (+ 14.7% compared to 2020) and attendance 6,798,425 (+ 16.3% compared to 2020).

The indicators of the congresses and events held in Italy in 2021 are therefore positive. A year in which the regulations made it possible to carry out events in attendance only from 1 July. And with reduced capacity until December 2nd.

The restart of the meeting industry
Confirmation of the resumption of the MICE comes from the Italian Observatory of Congresses and Events-OICE. This is the research promoted by the association of the Italian meeting industry Federcongressi & eventi and carried out by the High School of Economics and International Relations of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart – ASERI.

The role of events in presence: confirmation
Before the sudden setback due to the pandemic in 2020, the Italian congress and events market recorded an average annual increase in the number of events of 4.1%.

And today the conditions are in place to resume the trend. In fact, the demand for events and congresses by companies and associations has restarted significantly as soon as the Government has allowed the resumption of events.

The geography of events
Most of the congresses and events, 65.2%, took place in the North, 21.8% in the Center, 9.4% in the South and 3.6% in the Islands.

As regards the venues for events, conference hotels are the most used type. In fact, they concentrated 72.8% of the total events. Congress centers and congress exhibition venues hosted 4.4% of the events. On the other hand, non-hotel historic residences (abbeys, castles, ancient inns and farmhouses, historic buildings, villas, etc.) 3.6%.

In addition, 67% of the offices resumed their activities, registering an increase in turnover compared to 2020. In addition, for almost half of these, 48.9%, the increase was at least equal to 50%.

The effects of the pandemic
The regulations in place in 2021, with particular reference to spacing, have outlined a different way of using the offices in favor of large ones. The venues with an overall capacity of over 2,500 seats have in fact increased the hosted events by as much as 73.2%. The rules governing travel between states and regions also meant that most of the events had a local dimension.

That is, with participants coming mainly from the same region as the host venue. In fact, in 2021 for 71.8% of the venues at least half of the events hosted had a local area of reference. National events (with participants coming mainly from outside the region) accounted for at least half of the total for 42.4% of the venues, while international events (with a significant percentage of participants from abroad) were hosted by 38.3% of the venues, for 84.8% of which represented less than a quarter of the total events.

The reduction in the international market also affected the type of events hosted in Italy in 2021. In fact, the associative congresses represented less than 25% of the events hosted for 44.5% of the responding venues.

Corporate events, on the other hand, accounted for more than half for 63% of responding venues.

Hybrid events
To address the restrictions due to the pandemic, the majority (67.6%) of the convention and event facilities that hosted at least one event were home to hybrid events.

Although the estimate of the total number of hybrid events hosted is difficult due to the inhomogeneity of the structures, it is assumed that hybrid events were about 17,900, that is 20.7% of the total events.

Future prospects
The recovery phase we are experiencing is also confirmed by the sentiment expressed by the offices at the time the data was collected. In the first months of 2022, almost 40% estimated to return to pre-Covid levels of events hosted in attendance as early as 2022 and 37.2% in 2023.

Tag: OICE