Lisbon Tops ICCA’s Association Meeting Rankings

After podium finishes in the last four ICCA city rankings, Lisbon has secured the top position in the global ranking for international association meetings.

Visit Lisboa Managing Director António Valle highlights how Lisbon’s 188 association meetings attracted over 100,000 participants, boosting the city’s economy and international visibility, in a Portuguese LinkedIn post.

City Rankings

ICCA released its GlobeWatch: Business Analytics – Country & City Rankings 2025 report, ranking Paris #2 and Barcelona #3.

Paris was expected to recover from its Olympic year. The city consistently held a podium position in the ICCA rankings, including the top spot for 2023, but dropped to sixth for 2024. Barcelona’s third place is a return to the podium after being first in the 2017 rankings but not back in the top 3 until now. Copenhagen, London and Tokyo broke into the top 10, replacing Bangkok, Rome and Athens.

Europe holds 53% of all ICCA-tracked meetings and has seven of the top 10 cities.

1. Lisbon
2. Paris
3. Barcelona
4. Vienna
5. Singapore
6. Prague
7. Copenhagen
8. London
9. Seoul
10. Tokyo

Outside the top 10, Porto, Portugal — host of the 2025 ICCA Congress — Dubai, Mexico City, Lima, Sao Paulo, and Bogota gained significant market share compared to 2024. Dubai’s rise may not last in 2026 due to the Iran war. Meanwhile Milan, Stockholm, Helsinki, Melbourne, and Ljubljana lost market share compared to 2024.

Country Rankings

At a country level, the U.S. once again leads the pack:

1. U.S
2. Italy
3. Germany
4. Spain
5. UK
6. Japan
7. France
8. Portugal
9. Netherlands
10. China

As in previous years, the U.S. has no single destination in the top positions. The first U.S. city in ICCA’s 2025 rankings is Washington, D.C., at #53 with 47 meetings. If ICCA’s criteria included association meetings rotating within the U.S. and Canada, this count would be higher.

Italy remains in second place, ahead of Germany, which consistently held the second spot pre-Covid. ICCA’s numbers reveal a drop from 635 in 2024 to 616, representing a drop from 5.72% to 4.95% in Italy’s share of meetings.

China returned to the ICCA’s top 10, but not at the pre-Covid heights of seventh place. China leads countries increasing their market share, with Canada, Portugal, and Mexico among the sharpest risers.

Brazil’s rise is notable as their 2025 total of 276 meetings is higher than its pre-Covid peak of 244. This supports the increase in Latin America, with 1,124 association meetings in 2025 up from 903 in 2024.

Italy drops the most, followed by Finland, Spain, Sweden, Greece, the UK, and Belgium, which also lose out.

The Value of Association Meetings

The report states that direct expenditure from ICCA-tracked meetings was $13.57 billion in 2025. This represents an average delegate spend of $2,708 (up from $2,624). The average association meeting registration fee was $596 with meetings lasting 3.7 days.

ICCA forecasts that by 2030 it will track over 15,000 association meetings, close to 6.7 million participants generating $18.54 billion in delegate expenditure.

ICCA argues that association meetings of all sizes are valuable for destinations. However, it describes meetings of 500 to 1,000 participants as offering the “best attainability and return.”

ICCA’s estimates of the average delegate spend for meetings of different sizes.

• 50–249: $300,000
• 250–999: $1.3 million
• 1,000–1,999: $4.4 million
• 2,000–2,999: $9 million
• 3,000+: $20 million

For its 2025 rankings, ICCA tracked 12,438 meetings, an increase of 1,339 (10.8%) from last year. This number is close to the peak of 13,329 (-6.7%) in 2019. ICCA only includes association meetings with a regular cadence (annual, biennial or other) of 50+ persons rotating internationally within at least three countries or territories. Data on the meetings is reported by the destinations and tracked by ICCA’s research team.