For the first time ever, the city of Madrid is 2nd in the prestigious International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) ranking. For the 2013 edition, the capital has moved up from fourth to second place, thus moving onto the podium of the most valued international conference host cities at world level, and remaining at the forefront of meetings tourism in Spain.

Madrid has not only moved up in this classification, which contains data on 1,678 destinations and is a benchmark in the conference organising sector, but it has also increased its number of ICCA-approved conferences. In total, the city has reached 186 conferences - a figure representing 13% more than in 2012-, a year in which Madrid also beat its own record and reached fourth place.

This is the result of the firm commitment of the City Council, through Madrid Destino and the Madrid Convention Bureau, to the MICE tourism sector in Madrid. Intense international promotion work and collaboration with the Madrid tourist industry are the keys that have allowed the city's organisational capacity, and its excellent infrastructures and resources for holding events and meetings, to be acknowledged.

In this last ranking, Madrid came next only to Paris and managed to overtake Vienna, a destination that had held first place since 2009 and which has now moved down to third place. Madrid also remains ahead of Barcelona, which has come in fourth.

In 2008, Madrid held place number 22 in this ranking and, over the past few years, it has climbed steadily, first getting into the top ten and then into the top five of the leading conference tourism cities. And, now, it has managed to take an even stronger step and position itself in the three cities that are most chosen worldwide when it comes to hosting international conferences.

Madrid Convention Bureau, an organisation attached to the municipal company Madrid Destino, is responsible for promoting Madrid as a MICE tourism destination and, along with its almost 200 Madrid member companies, it works daily to capture events and meetings for the city. One of its main objectives is to promote Madrid to international conference organisers and associations so that they host their meetings in Madrid.

This joint promotion is reflected in the ICCA ranking, since 50% of the confirmed events took place in some of the hotels, conference centres and special venues that are members of the Madrid Convention Bureau. Besides, throughout 2013, the Madrid Convention Bureau won 57 bids for international conferences, which will be held between 2014 and 2019 and which, in terms of global participation, will mean over 50,500 new business tourists for the city of Madrid.

Particularly noteworthy amongst these bids are the World ATM Congress 2015 (6,500 people), the European Association of Urology Congress 2015 (8,000 people) and the European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers Conference, EAGE 2015 (with 7,000 attendees).