The Belgian capital, Brussels, continues to wear its crown as the the world’s leading city for international meetings, according to the latest annual ranking by the Union of International Associations (UIA) – a non-profit and non-governmental research institute. The European hub, which is home to the European Commission and European Parliament, also saw record tourism numbers in 2024, visit.brussels reports.
Europe dominates meetings segment
Europe as a region often dominates the results, last year hosting 53% of all meetings. General figures show the majority of meetings around the world last three days (27.4%) and welcome between 100 and 500 delegates (49.4%).
In this 66th edition of UI’s report, Brussels is revealed to have hosted the most meetings by international non-profit organisations in 2024, for the fourth time in successive years, once again proving it is worthy of its two-decade place among the leaders in the field.
Of 8,859 congresses around the world in 2024, 388 (7 per cent) of them took place in Brussels. While Singapore is often in the running, Vienna ranked second, totting up 239 meetings. Meanwhile, Seoul came in third with 180, followed by Barcelona and Tokyo.
Overnight stays up and a better balanced year
The data present good news not only for the corporate and business hospitality sector but for leisure travel too. The capital’s tourism agency, visitbrussels, registered 10 million overnight stays in Brussels accommodation in 2024, smashing the record held by 2019 by 3.6% and an increase of 4.8% year on year.
While there was also a big jump in July’s figure compared to 2024, city authorities have expressed satisfaction with the “better spread” of tourism through the year. The destination achieved a more even distribution having drawn in more winter season visitors than the previous year in November and December, January and February. Winter attractions such as Brussels’ winter fair – ranked by some as the best in the world – are a part of that equation.
According to the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) and its Economic Impact Research, by 2035, the sector is expected to support an additional 4.5 million jobs in Europe, reaching over 30 million. With visitor spending predicted to grow 11%, travel and tourism’s GDP contribution to the bloc is likely to rise to almost €2.3 trillion, contributing more than €900 billion annually to EU governments through tax revenues.
