“Membership in the ICCA is the natural consequence of the fact that Łódź is fully predisposed to become an important conference centre - a national and international one - due to the central location in Poland and in Europe, at the intersection of motorways, close to the capital of Poland, the modern railway station, the airport, its dynamically developing market of business services, the high level of services provided for tourists, and finally the important sports and cultural events taking place here. Our city is the second fastest growing hotel market in Poland not without reason. I am also sure that it will soon become an important spot in the congress map of Europe and, owing to a larger number of international conferences and congresses, the number of conference facilities, such as a large professional congress centre, is also going to increase,” said Krzysztof Piątkowski, the Vice President of Łódź. He also adds, “There is a lot to fight for. The meeting sector is valued at 1% of the GDP, PLN 26 billion and 171,000 jobs. I am sure that Łódź is going to get a larger and larger piece of this cake every year.
“We are very happy with the opportunity to be a member of such a prestigious association, the ICCA. This co-operation will allow us expand our business and gain innovative directions of operation. What is more, we will acquire new, international contacts,” Tomasz Koralewski, the President of Łódź Tourism Organisation adds.
The ICCA is the only association gathering the best specialists in the organisation and management of international congresses and conferences. The Association’s objective is to provide a professional environment operating in the field of meeting industry, which will allow its members for creating and maintaining a significant competitive advantage. The Association unites more than 1,000 member companies and organisations in almost 100 countries in the world. The head office of the ICCA is located in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The ICCA also has 3 representative offices: the Asian one in Malesia, the South American one in Uruguay and the North American one in the USA.
“Accession to the ICCA is an important step for the development of the meeting industry in our city. Skilful use of the opportunities offered by the Association will definitely increase the business tourist traffic. If it is followed by further development of infrastructure, Łódź has a chance to become an important European conference centre,” says Robert Zintera, the co-ordinator of Łódź Convention Bureau.
The ICCA membership brings plenty of benefits. It provides an economic way of acquiring and attracting events of the meetings industry. It allows for accessing the global contact network enabling operations within the worldwide platform representing all the sectors of meeting industry. It provides access to the database of over 72,000 conferences organised by more than 5,000 associations in which you can find data on the history of almost every conference and information about associations. Moreover, the ICCA conducts rich training activity for its members.
Łódź lacks international conferences and congresses. There are very few such events during the year and we hope, after the city’s promotion related to the expo application and the second place in the ranking of Lonely Planet among the places worth a visit in 2019, that the ICCA membership will highlight our city even more clearly in the map of places that are good venues of events. Considering the newly established facilities and infrastructure, we have a huge potential in this regard,” adds Dominik Chrapek, the Vice-President of the Management Board of Film Hotel sp. z o. o., managing DoubleTree by Hilton Łódź.
“The membership of Łódź Tourism Organisation in the ICCA is a very good news, it will significantly contribute to even better promotion of the city and the region in business tourism. The presence of ŁOT in the ICCA is important because of the necessity to acquire large events for the newly established facilities in Łódź,” recapitulates Magdalena Fohue, the General Manager of Novotel Łódź Centrum Hotel.
