The FL24 Tourism Reserve: Strengthened business and meeting tourism

The overall objectives of the project are:

• To strengthen business and meeting tourism outside the major cities – based, among other things, on local business areas of strength and on competence development.
• To attract more international scientific congresses within Danish areas of strength, and to help ensure that Danish congress hosting is used to a greater extent as an instrument for innovation and development within Danish business and research.

Meeting tourism outside the major cities

Within the project, a market and potential analysis is being prepared for each of the association's member destinations, along with an overarching national analysis that looks across them. The analyses will present concrete recommendations for the respective member destinations and for the development of Denmark's international competitiveness within meeting tourism outside larger cities.

The market and potential analyses will form the starting point for preparing a strategic action plan for the development of meeting tourism at each member destination. The action plans will thereby become the basis for the member destinations' work on product and partnership development and so on in the coming years. Read more here.

Congress tourism in the major cities

Through the project, MeetDenmark will further accelerate the attraction of international scientific congresses within Danish areas of strength and ensure that Danish congress hosting contributes as much as possible to the innovation and development of Danish business.

Today, the number of bids submitted by the four Danish congress destinations is limited primarily by a lack of resources (rather than by a lack of opportunities in the market). At the same time, market failure means that virtually no single private player has the resources, competencies and incentive to handle the years-long and complex bidding processes.

The project will therefore help increase the number of bids on selected congresses assessed to be capable of creating the greatest value for both business and local communities at the destination. The bids are to include so-called legacy elements in order to ensure broader value creation for business and society.

The four major city destinations that bid on congresses will also use this broadly based bidding work and focus on wider value creation to work towards establishing more systematic collaborations with relevant local/national/private stakeholders, and to initiate a dialogue about the possibilities for strengthened private/external co-financing.

MeetDenmark's secretariat will ensure that experiences are gathered and shared across the destinations – including with other Danish destinations that have the capacity for congress hosting and wish to invest in the effort going forward.