Although it won't take place until next month, the International Congress and Convention Association's 2009 Congress has already attracted a record-breaking 847 delegates from 66 countries, ICCA announced this week.
The previous record for the annual event, which will take place Nov. 7-11 in Florence, Italy, was 814 delegates for the 2007 ICCA Congress in Thailand.
This year's ICCA Congress program will feature a diverse mix of speakers, including corporate and association meetings clients, business speakers from outside the meetings industry and ICCA members.
While the education is a major draw, however, ICCA CEO Martin Sirk suggested that the ICCA Congress owes its record registrations to its growing association membership.
"We have strategically positioned ICCA as the specialist expert association for the association meetings market, and as a result have seen membership growth continue over recent months despite all the turmoil in the world markets," he said, adding that 85 companies have joined ICCA so far in 2009. "We believe the main reason for this performance is that more and more suppliers have realized they need to take the international association meetings market more seriously."
For more information about the 2009 ICCA Congress, or to register, visit
www.iccaworld.com/dbs/congress2009.