Brussels - Top European City of Association Conferences & Some Interesting Data

Today in the Travel Daily News, Brussels came out on top in Europe for Association Conferences. This piqued our interest here at The Conference Bench as we have had a pretty good sample going in the Brussels market for quite some time now.

The criteria that this is based on is as follows:

 “Brussels has risen not only to first place in Europe but also to second in the world according to the UIA criteria, which take into account meetings of at least 300 participants of 5 different nationalities for a minimum of 5 days. According to these same criteria, at least 40 per cent of the participants must come from abroad” Source: TravelDailyNews.com

The article goes onto explain that some of the reasons behind Brussels strong performance; Capital of Europe, phenomenal transport links and a lot of cross border meetings, which we wholeheartedly agree with. According to the article, Brussels held 402 meetings of this type. The reason that this got our minds buzzing is that 402 meetings of at least 300 people, with a minimum duration of 5 days... that must be A LOT of revenue, and seeing as we have the data, we thought we would share it with you.

The average revenue per delegate (RevPD) figure we have for the Brussels market since we started is €57.61, based on 14 properties participating. This is the total RevPD figure from October 2009 – May 2010 inclusive.      

So, doing some simple maths...

300 delegates  x 5 days x 402 events x €57.61 = €34,738,830.00

This is a massive amount of revenue that Association Conferences are bringing into the market!  Let alone the bedrooms! Thanks to STR Global data from YTD December 2009 we can add the ADR for Brussels of  €102.71, we can get a rough estimate of the total revenue: (we have gone with a minimum amount here in terms of rooms sold, so three nights at 175 beds sold per night.)

175 bedrooms x 3 nights x 402 events x €102.71 = €21,676,945.00

So at a conservative guess for the total revenue including bedrooms – €56,415,775.00 in one year! Wow!

We understand that these figures are estimated – we do not have a comprehensive sample in Brussels as yet, but still – what a total figure for one segment of the business in the city! 

Is your hotel in Brussels taking a piece of this revenue throughout the year?  What are you doing at hotel level to try and capture some of this enourmous amount of revenue? if you have more than one hotel in Brussels, are you working together to accommodate the bigger pieces of group business?

Using The Conference Bench, you should see what kind of a slice of this pie you are getting!  If you are not participating, and wish to do so on a trial basis either in Brussels or another of our destinations, please drop us an e-mail at info@jwbench.com! We look forward to hearing from you!