BUSAN < invest Korea

Busan, at the center of the world as a host city of international conferences Asia's fourth, the only non-capital city

Busan has been ranked as a global city of international conferences. It has been officially recognized for holding more international conferences than global convention cities such as Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong. On June 17th, the Union of International Associations (UIA) announced the world's ranking of 2010 convention cities, and ranked Busan as 17th in the world and fourth in Asia. Last year, Busan held 93 international conventions that met the UIA standards.

Considering that the city was ranked 10th place in Asia and 37th in the world in the previous year, when it hosted just 41 conventions, Busan's ranking has risen greatly. Busan is the only non-capital city included in the top four cities in Asia. How could Busan achieve this high performance in such a short period of time? Perhaps it was due to the joint efforts by the City of Busan, Busan Convention & Visitors' Bureau, BEXCO and companies planning international meetings to establish a marketing system. As a result, last year Busan held the most international conferences with more than 1,000 guests in Korea.

Busan held a number of prestigious events for international organizations and governments, such as the G20 financial summit and a meeting of central bank presidents. Busan also continuously developed regional specialization brand meetings. From these results, it is evident that Busan has selected the tourism & convention industry as one of its four core strategic industries, and given it intensive support.

Source : Dynamic Busan (July 11, 2011)