by Paul Woodward

I’ve been following with great interest news from the annual Congress of ICCA, UFI’s ‘sister’ organisation for the Congress industry, which is taking place now in Hyderabad, India. They’re busy tweeting it and, as usual, there’s lots going on. What caught my eye this morning was a press release from some research they’d done together with the organisers of IMEX.

This research shows that 30% of respondents are reporting increased attendance at their major meetings and almost half of the rest saying that their events were holding up at the same levels as previous years. This certainly matches our own experience. As I write this today, the 77th UFI Congress is just 5 registrations away from equalling all time record attendance.

I’m sure that Singapore, our destination and the new Marina Bay Sands are an important part of the attraction, but it is testament to the importance to our members of meeting that they are coming into south-east Asia from over 50 countries and in such numbers. Our theme is “Successful Business in a Changing World” and we’ll be hoping that both the content and the great networking will add real value to our members’ activities in 2011.

For those of you who can’t be with us, look out for updates on Twitter with the hashtag #ufisingapore, at UFI’s own Twitter page and on this blog.