The Minister of Tourism, Lex Delles, unveiled his new “Business Events 2030” strategy at the Philharmonie, 30 March 2023. Photo: Romain Gamba/Maison Moderne

The Minister of Tourism, Lex Delles, unveiled his new “Business Events 2030” strategy at the Philharmonie, 30 March 2023. Photo: Romain Gamba/Maison Moderne

With its new Business Events 2030 strategy, Luxembourg aims to create and maintain a framework to attract business events to the country.

Conferences, congresses, conventions, trade fairs, corporate events… the field of business events is vast and Luxembourg aims to strengthen its position in this market.

In 2019, the average expenditure of a participant in this type of event amounted to €594 per day, “which is much more than leisure tourists,” said tourism minister (DP) on Thursday, based on figures from the International Congress and Convention Association.

The organisation publishes an annual ranking of host destinations for international congresses, and Luxembourg aims to reach the top 50. “Initially, this was planned for October 2023; it was one of the government’s priorities. But there was covid, and we are proud to have reached 54th place in 2021. Through our strategy, I am confident that we will very quickly reach the top 50 business event destinations,” Delles said.

Business events observatory in the making

The strategy aims to establish and maintain a framework conducive to the development of the business events sector by working on four areas: the organisation of events, the federation of the players involved, development through the creation of an incubator and the introduction of financial aid adapted to organisers, and finally the measurement of the sector’s impact on the economy through the creation of a dedicated observatory.

This mission should fall to the Luxembourg Convention Bureau, the successor of the so-called Mice Cluster, which provides assistance to professional event organisers. The Business Events 2030 strategy took two years to develop, said Delles, at a price tag of €50,000.

In 2022, Luxembourg hosted 169 business events. Their average duration was 2.9 days, with an average of 317 participants. Organisers came mainly from Belgium (21%), France (18%) and the grand duchy (14%), according to the LCB.

As for business event travellers, the sector attracted 107,000 people to Luxembourg in 2021, an annual growth of 75%, but still 44% lower than in 2019 when 190,000 came to Luxembourg for work.

This story was first published in French on . It has been translated and edited for Delano.