Cuba ranks fifth in the Americas among top picks for congress and conferences

Annual statistics recently released by the International Congress and Conference Association (ICCA) placed Cuba as the fifth most sought-after destination in the western hemisphere by international organizations and associations to hold their meetings in the year 2001, only second-bested by the United States, Canada, Brazil and Mexico.

As a matter of fact, Havana grabbed the fourth spot in the city category , trailing behind Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro and the Canadian pair of Montreal and Vancouver.

The ICCA is the world’s number-one association of the congress industry. It puts out every year data and research studies conducted worldwide on that particular tourist modality on the basis of the rotation of those events carried out by over 5,000 registered international associations.

The fifth notch nabbed by Cuba was the result of 20 of these meetings held by international associations last year on the island nation, attended by little more than 8,200 foreign delegates, according to the information revealed by the ICCA, an entity in which the Cuban Convention Bureau and Havana’s International Conference Center are hands-on members.

In keeping with the data provided by the ICCA, the total estimated spending in all those meetings held in the course of the year 2001 tallied $3 billion and averaged $1,517 per attendant, a figure that puts this industry way above other conventional tourist modalities.