KölnKongress celebrates a special anniversary in 2019

  • KölnKongress is one of the top partners of the CCB for marketing Cologne as a location for meetings and congresses. © KölnKongress GmbH
    KölnKongress is one of the top partners of the CCB for marketing Cologne as a location for meetings and congresses. © KölnKongress GmbH
12.12.2018

Next year Cologne’s event services provider KölnKongress will celebrate its twenty-fifth anniversary. There won’t be a gala celebration, but the company’s figures speak for themselves. Since 1994, 21 million guests have attended 64,000 events in KölnKongress locations, which are now eight in total. The CCB extends its sincere congratulations.

“People like to come to Cologne. It’s a great place to work, live, study and celebrate. Cologne has a lot to offer, and it’s open to everyone. The people who come here for congresses and other events can feel that. As operators of event locations, we too want to communicate this special feeling — or jeföhl, as we say in Cologne,” says the Managing Director of KölnKongress, Bernhard Conin. Cologne is not only a trade fair city but also a significant location for congresses. Mayor Henriette Reker congratulates: “KölnKongress is a perfect host for our city. The well-being and satisfaction of the event organizers and the guests is always close to its heart — and that’s why many event organizers come back to Cologne again and again.”

Medical congresses, annual general meetings, conferences, political party conventions, weddings, classical and rock concerts, social events, exhibitions and Carnival sessions — the wide variety of event formats hosted by KölnKongress attracts visitors from Germany and abroad to Cologne. Visitors from all over the world flock to the congresses held in the Gürzenich, the Flora and the Congress Centre Koelnmesse. Guests from a region of 200 km around Cologne come to the open-air concerts at the Tanzbrunnen. Many clubs and local people from Cologne also celebrate their private parties at KölnKongress locations.

The visitors who attend approximately 2,000 events at the KölnKongress locations every year spend €233.1 million in total — and almost 80% of that amount is spent in Cologne (€185.5 million). The visitors’ direct spending in Cologne has a knock-on effect in the rest of Germany, resulting in a total of €411.8 million in indirect revenue. Here too, most of this amount (€301.4 million) remains in Cologne.

KölnKongress as a partner of CCB

The partnership between KölnKongress and the Cologne Convention Bureau dates back to the foundation phase of the CCB. “KölnKongress GmbH was one of our first partners. That was a key factor in our successful marketing of Cologne as a venue for meetings and congresses, both in Germany and at the international level,” says Stephanie Kleine Klausing, the Procurator of the Cologne Tourist Board and Temporary Head of the CCB. “The Cologne Tourist Board congratulates KölnKongress on its twenty-five years of the successful work on behalf of Cologne as a destination for visitors. We look forward to our continued cooperation.”