The city of Buenos Aires was ranked first in America in the 2023 edition of the ranking prepared by the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA), after having held 90 approved events. In this way, the national capital showed an increase of 36% compared to the 66 meetings that took place during 2022, although the recovery is still at 71% compared to 2019.
In that sense, the City repeated its leadership in America for the 13th time and, at the same time, climbed four positions in the world list compared to last year, placing 14th in the ranking, with 26 more events than Montreal, which was positioned second.
“This result reflects the work carried out by Visit Buenos Aires to promote the City in the world, as well as to attract international events. Business tourism is one of the most important segments for the City, due to the economic impact it represents. That is why we have the obligation to continue positioning our destination among the main ones internationally,” said Valentín Díaz Gilligan, president of the Tourism Entity of the City of Buenos Aires.
The national capital covered 60% of the 145 ICCA events held across the country. In this framework, it is worth mentioning that Argentina was ranked 5th in America and 25th internationally. In addition, during 2023, business tourism mobilized more than 280 thousand tourists and generated an income of more than US$244 million.
How the international promotion of the City is worked
Visit Buenos Aires, the public-private agency in charge of the international promotion of the City of Buenos Aires, carries out different activities throughout the year aimed not only at showing the attractions of the City to the world, but also at establishing links with the private sector abroad to capture specific markets and segments in different world-renowned fairs.
The organization already has a broad agenda of actions for the coming months, both in countries in the region and in more distant destinations, within the framework of the search for longer distance markets, such as Spain and Germany. In addition, it was present at fairs and events aimed at specific segments such as GNetwork in Santiago de Chile (LGBT tourism), Running Remote in Lisbon (digital nomads) and ILTM Latin America in São Paulo (luxury tourism).
On the other hand, Visit BUE is responsible for generating commercial agreements that generate campaigns with different companies with the aim of facilitating the arrival of international tourists. Some examples are the agreements signed to increase the frequencies of Iberia and Air Europa to the City, as well as the campaigns cooperated with foreign tour operators.