Newsletter 4 2005 - May

11th World Travel Award: ICC Berlin is the world's leading congress centre

The International Congress Centre Berlin (ICC Berlin) has won yet another major international award. Europe’s largest congress venue was voted the “World’s Leading Conference & Convention Centre 2004”. Over 230,000 tourism experts from travel agencies, hotels, airlines, tourism centres and other organisations around the world cast their vote. Major contenders beaten by the ICC Berlin included the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre, the International Conference Centre Chicago, the ExCeL London, the Las Vegas Convention Centre and the World Trade Centre Dubai.

This is the 11th time that the London-based media organisation World Travel Awards Ltd. has presented the prize. Last year the ICC Berlin came second. Completed in 1979, it acquired a dominant market role even in its early years. In 1984, 1985 and 1986 readers of Conferences & Exhibitions International, then a leading British journal, voted it “the best congress centre in the world”.

According to Raimund Hosch, CEO Messe Berlin GmbH, receiving this prestigious award is confirmation of the company’s successful business strategy, which focuses above all on large-scale international congresses. Additionally, he claimed that the ICC Berlin was indispensable for staging congresses accompanying trade fairs, which generate publicity on a global scale and significantly boost Berlin’s role as a centre for business and science.

Congresses account for a major share of business travel, an important market segment of the entire tourism industry. In 2004 the success of the ICC Berlin also contributed to an upswing of the tourism industry in Berlin. In the same year the ICC Berlin registered a total of 585 conferences and more than 174,000 participants. 50 per cent of visitors (100,000) came from outside Berlin.

Over the last few months, the ICC Berlin invested considerable amounts in new rooms and additional equipment, further ensuring highest technical standards and the latest in room equipment for events of all kinds in the ICC. In order to meet rising demand existing space has been converted into two new salons on the same floor as the Pullman restaurant, each offering seating for 70. Two salons adding the same amount of space in the ICC yet again will be ready for IFA from September 2005. They are named after famous specialists from the field of medicine, such as Virchow, Langenbeck, Koch and Sauerbruch.
The ICC Berlin also boasts some technical innovations. In Halls 1 (seating 5,000), 2 (up to 3,000) and 3 (800), and in the roof garden foyer, directional lighting systems have been replaced by state-of-the-art illumination. In the entire building new in-house TV circuits now transmit on two channels, so audiences can listen to speakers in two languages, for example.

Two new large screens with dimensions of 8 by 22 metres have now replaced those previously mounted on the sound curtains in Halls 1 and 2, resulting in even better and clearer acoustics during events, and improved sound effects from the various screenings.

Information on www.icc-berlin.de