Düsseldorf wins bid for one of most important European events industry conferences

The European Meetings and Events Conference (EMEC) will take place from February 13 to 15, 2011 in Düsseldorf – hosted by Meeting Professionals International (MPI), the biggest meetings and event industry association in the world with a 24,000-strong membership and its headquarters in Dallas/USA. Düsseldorf, the capital of the German state North Rhine-Westphalia, bid a few months ago as the venue for the 2011 MPI conference and has now emerged as the winner. The good news was officially announced at this year’s meeting in Malaga.

Held each year, the EMEC is the biggest gathering of the meetings and event industry in Europe. Around 500 event organisers and service providers take advantage of the conference to catch up on the latest standards and trends in event planning, to forge new contacts and to discuss the latest developments, such as shifts in the industry landscape created by Social Media or Green Meetings. The yearly European MPI meeting was held for the first time in 1992, since when it has been staged in London, Copenhagen and Turin among others.

In its bid to host the EMEC 2011 Düsseldorf beat fellow contestants Brussels and Budapest. The North Rhine-Westphalia state capital scored not only with its interesting event facilities and first-rate range of hotels but most particularly with its flair as a modern lifestyle and fashion metropolis. So as a foretaste of the 2011 conference Düsseldorf included a brief fashion show, organised by the venue management and event organisation company DüsseldorfCongress Veranstaltungsgesellschaft in cooperation with the Igedo Company’s Spanish representative, in its self-presentation at this year’s meeting in Malaga. Collections by Filippa K. and Toni Francesc were among those modelled.

Hilmar Guckert, the CEO of DüsseldorfCongress, had previously extended all the meeting professionals present a warm anticipatory welcome to the European Meetings and Events Conference 2011 in Düsseldorf. He sees the trade conference as an outstanding platform to highlight Düsseldorf’s merits as a destination for all the event planners participating, and indeed all the members organised in the global association, and hence to generate further conventions, meetings and events for the German city: “We are greatly looking forward to welcoming Meeting Professionals International’s annual European conference to our city next year. Düsseldorf marries considerable economic prominence and excellent infrastructure with the delightful flair of an extremely diverse, experience-packed lifestyle city – an absolutely ideal blend for association and business events. I am confident that the MPI guests will feel very much at home there.”

For further information on the association MPI and its European Meetings and Events Conference visit www.mpiweb.org.