What the first six months of 2025 reveal about hosting sector-aligned international meetings
Understanding why international business events choose specific host cities is essential for cities looking to attract more conferences and meetings. While factors like accessibility, venue capacity, and destination appeal play a role, a key insight from our analysis shows that the majority of events align closely with the host city’s academic strengths, industrial expertise, or strategic development sectors.
Between January and June 2025, researchers at SFA Connect examined 183 international meetings confirmed by ICCA, covering 60 countries and 130 cities. Our analysis focused on identifying whether these meetings were held in cities that have recognised expertise in the event’s topic—either through strong academic research, established industries, or innovative ecosystems.
The findings show that 82% of these meetings were linked to the city’s key sectors or known areas of expertise. At SFA we have long since believed in the sector first approach and it is nice to see the evidence in the numbers. This reinforces the importance for destinations and Convention and Visitor Bureaus (CVBs) to clearly define and promote their local strengths as part of their event attraction strategies.
We’ve extracted from the International Congress & Convention Assocation (ICCA) data all the events confirmed between 1st January and 30th June 2025, held anywhere globally, with a minimum of 50 and a maximum of 2,000 delegates per event. This left with a total of 183 meetings spanning 60 countries and 130 cities.
We analysed the data in 3 steps:
Step 1: Identifying the city key sectors: For each of the 130 cities, we defined 10 key sectors based on: Strong academic reputation (active research); established industry and innovation ecosystems; and clear local development strategies.
In total, 1,300 sectors were identified (10 per city) using AI-assisted analysis to streamline the process due to the large scale of the data.
Step 2: Aligning meetings with city sectors: We manually reviewed all 183 meetings to assess whether their topics aligned directly with the host city’s defined key sectors. For instance Copenhagen (specialised in Renewable Energy) hosting the Wind Turbine Noise Conference; Kyoto (Green Tech) hosting the International Conference on Serpentine Ecology; Johannesburg (Trade & Logistics) hosting the Conference of the World Union of Wholesale Markets or Montreal (Neurosciences) hosting the World Congress on Brain Injury.
As a result, 95 meetings (52%) were confirmed as directly related to one of the city’s key sectors.
Step 3: Assessing remaining meetings for local expertise: For the 88 remaining meetings, we checked one by one to determine if the host city had recognised expertise in the field by conducting targeted online research and asking and AI agent, “Is city X famous for this specific topic?”.
If the city had international or regional expertise (for example, a regional leadership in European, North American, APAC, Africa or Nordic context), we counted it as aligned. For instance, Tokyo hosted the International Conference on Surface Plasmon Photonics. Although photonics is not one of the city key sectors, it is recognised as a key centre for research in surface plasmon photonics, especially within the fields of nanotechnology, materials science, and optical engineering. Nairobi is respected for statistics research & education within Kenya and East Africa, especially through the University of Nairobi and national agencies like KNBS. While it is not globally famous in the same way as major international research centres, its role is growing, particularly in applied statistics related to development, health, and economics, hence them hosting the African International Conference on Statistics in June. Following this method and reviewing manually each opportunity, 50 additional meetings met this criterion.
Only 33 meetings (just 18%) showed no direct or recognised link between the host city’s expertise and the meeting’s topic(s).
Key Findings:
At least 82% of the business meetings recorded by ICCA in the first half of 2025 were held in cities aligned with relevant key sectors or recognised areas of expertise.
When there was no clear connection, destination selection was likely driven by other factors:
- Strategic location, destination appeal, and accessibility: Some events held in Istanbul highlight the city’s strategic geographical position, attracting delegates from both EMEA and Asia. In some cases, events choose capital cities not necessarily due to the city’s own key industries, but because of the country’s overall prominence—for example, Kigali hosted the World Congress on Agroforestry in May 2025. Similarly, some events hosted in Lisbon and Barcelona may reflect their strong international reputation and touristic appeal rather than the prominence of a sector/discipline in the city.
- Capacity and international rotation: Large scale meetings sometimes require cities with adequate facilities, influencing selection beyond sector relevance.
- Organisational preferences: Associations may select a host city based on where their president resides or to develop local membership and outreach.
The main recommendation for CVBs is to focus on local expertise and key sectors. Maintaining a strategic focus on local expertise is not just about attracting events. It helps anchor your destination’s identity in the global marketplace, creating sustained economic and social value for your community.
- Positioning your city as a leader in specific fields attracts international events. This strengthens local academic visibility and enhances your city’s global reputation.
- Understand and promote niche specialisms: Going beyond top-tier sectors to highlight specialised, lesser-known strengths is worthwhile. It requires continuous effort: Monitor local universities’ newsletters; review local economic development agency reports; and stay curious about evolving local capabilities and global trends.
- Engage with local talent: Your local academics, industry leaders, and experts are crucial allies. Building strong relationships with them ensures mutual awareness and support.
