FIRST RELEASE		CROATIAN BUREAU OF STATISTICS 10000 ZAGREB, ILICA 3, PHONE: +385 1 4806-111, P.O.B. 80, CROATIA ISSN 1334-0565
YEAR: XLVI.	ZAGREB, 27 MARCH, 2009		NUMBER: 4.4.8/1.
				OBLIGED TO NOTIFY DATA SOURCE

CONGRESSES AND OTHER BUSINESS MEETINGS, JANUARY 2009

In January 2009, the number of business meetings held in the Republic of Croatia was 235. There were 89 meetings with overnight stays and 146 without them. The total number of days at business meetings was 447. Each meeting was held 2 days on the average. The number of participants at all meetings was 17 368, out of which the number of domestic participants was 16 499 (95%) and the number of foreign ones was 869 (5%).

According to professional organisers, the most meetings, 139 of them (59%), were organised by enterprises.

In January 2009, the turnover of 5 450 911 kuna was generated from business meetings. Out of the total turnover, 3 656 932 kuna (67%) was generated from meetings with overnight stays and 1 793 979 kuna (33%) from meetings without overnight stays.

1. BUSINESS ENTITIES IN WHICH BUSINESS MEETINGS WERE HELD, JANUARY 2009

	Business entities	Halls	Seats
Total	56	295	32 250
Hotels and similar accommodation facilities^,	52	248	17 050
Universities, fair, cultural institutions and other types of facilities in which business meetings are held	4	47	15 200

2.   BUSINESS MEETINGS WERE HELD, JANUARY 2009

	Business meetings	Number of days  at meetings	Participants			Night overstays	Turnover generated by meeting,  kuna, incl. VAT
			Total	Participants without overnight stays	Participants with overnight stays
Total	235	447	17 368	14 379	2 989	7 800	5 450 911
Meetings with overnights	89	239	4 591	1 602	2 989	7 800	3 656 932
Meetings without overnights	146	208	12 777	12 777	-	-	1 793 979

3. BUSINESS MEETINGS, BY TYPE OF FACILITY IN WHICH BUSINESS MEETINGS WERE HELD, JANUARY 2009

	Business meetings	Number of days at meeting	Participants			Night overstays			Turnover  generated by meeting,  kuna, incl. VAT
			Total	Domestic	Foreign	Total	By  domestic  participants	By  foreign participants
Total	235	447	17 368	16 499	869	7 800	4 180	3 620	5 450 911
Hotels and similar accommodation facilities	224	436	15 548	14 679	869	7 800	4 180	3 620	5 368 823
Universities, fair, cultural institutions and other types of facilities in which business meetings are held	11	11	1 820	1 820	-	-	-	-	82 088

4.   BUSINESS MEETINGS, BY TYPE, JANUARY 2009

	Business meetings	Number of days at meeting	Participants, total			Night overstays			Turnover generated by meeting,  kuna,  incl. VAT
			Total	Domestic	Foreign	Total	By domestic  participants	By  foreign participants
Total	235	447	17 368	16 499	869	7 800	4 180	3 620	5 450 911
Corporate/business meeting	71	127	3 177	3 110	67	1 041	729	312	1 536 843
Congress (forum, course of lectures, seminar, symposium)	128	252	10 516	9 746	770	6 266	2 993	3 273	3 144 123
Public conference/lecture	7	7	1 395	1 395	-	-	-	-	116 001
Governmental conferences	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
General assembly	3	5	640	640	-	-	-	-	13 400
Convention	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Incentive arrangement	2	3	134	118	16	189	169	20	106 517
Team building	4	12	123	107	16	108	93	15	119 084
Other	20	41	1 383	1 383	-	196	196	-	414 943

5. BUSINESS MEETINGS, BY PROFESSIONAL ORGANISER, JANUARY 2009

	Business meetings	Number of days at meeting	Participants			Night overstays			Turnover  generated by meeting,  kuna, incl. VAT
			Total	Domestic	Foreign	Total	By domestic  participants	By  foreign participants
Total	235	447	17 368	16 499	869	7 800	4 180	3 620	5 450 911
International organisations	5	22	192	132	60	389	82	307	539 655
Croatian Government, bodies of state and local government and self-government	7	11	713	713	-	73	73	-	148 897
Universities, polytechnics, academies, institutes	12	27	1 246	1 240	6	670	652	18	645 913
Travel agencies	14	28	840	513	327	2 198	236	1 962	625 570
Business entities (enterprises)	139	247	10 653	10 441	212	1 492	963	529	2 209 707
Professional associations	18	41	1 013	952	61	1 192	751	441	372 338
Other (banks, insurance agencies, political parties, NGOs)	30	52	2 322	2 299	23	1 377	1 331	46	663 462
Foreign enterprises, institutions, organisations	10	19	389	209	180	409	92	317	245 369

NOTES ON METHODOLOGY

Data sources

The data source is the regular monthly survey on business tourism conducted through the Report on Business Meeting (TU-23 form).

Coverage and comparability

The survey covers all business entities performing business meetings, incentive arrangements and team building programmes (hotel and restaurant facilities, universities, concert and congress halls, fair, cultural facilities) as well as mediators and organisers of such meetings and incentive travels (e.g. travel agencies). The survey covers all business meetings with at least one realised overnight and all business meetings without realised overnights attended by 20 participants or more.

Due to the fact that not all of reporting units have established their registers of business meetings, the coverage in this survey is not full yet.

Definitions

Corporate/business meetings are those business-oriented meetings in which the participants represent the same company, corporate group, joint-venture, or client/provider relations.

Congress is a meeting of generally fixed frequency having an extraordinary nature, in which participants belonging to different places meet at a predetermined site and time in order to discuss things. Scientific congresses and conferences can be subcategorised into forums, colloquiums, seminars and symposiums.

Public conferences/lectures are unidirectional meetings in which discussion is proposed by the conference organiser, the audience taking an essentially passive role, and where specialised knowledge is not necessarily required. 

Governmental conferences are technical or political meetings between governments with the aim of discussing national or international topics to reach agreements of a political nature.

General assemblies are civil meetings, limited to the members of one organisation, of an internal nature, committed to discussing the function of the organisation itself, and to signing legally binding agreements (election of candidates, reviewing programmes, setting norms and rules) concerning predominated issues.

Conventions are general and formal meetings of legislative bodies, social or economic groups in order to provide information on a particular situation in order to deliberate and, consequently, establish consent on policies among the participants. Usually of limited duration with set objectives, but no determined frequency.

Incentive travel is the method of stimulating the employees of a certain corporation and improving the corporation’s functioning. Incentive travel is a stimulating travel given as an award to the best employees of a certain corporation. It has replaced classic stimulating money award etc. This is the way firms thank their clients, motivate or reward their employees for their loyalty and hard work invested in firm’s efficiency, by taking them to a nice incentive travel. Incentive programmes include: golfing, sailing, rafting, ballooning, shooting, cycling, paint ball, ATV safari etc.

Team building programme is the special type of incentive travel offering active relaxation at the same time, organised by agencies catering for the employees of certain firms and institutions with the aim of boosting the team spirit, practicing coordination and offering other incentives.

Other types of business meetings are presentations, candidate testing, promoting campaigns, religious congresses and similar meetings.

Business meetings with overnights are meetings at which at least a part of participants realised an overnight. Business meetings without overnights are meetings at which no participants realised an overnight. Regarding meetings without overnights, e.g. evaluation of candidates for a job, it is possible for the number of days to be more than one, since a meeting may last for several days, but not all participants stayed all the time at the meeting (that is, there were no overnights).

Professional organisers of business meetings or incentive travels are institutions, associations, companies that organise a business meeting (orderers), such as: international governmental organisations (e.g. UN, EU, EFTA, OECD, NATO), international NGOs, the Government of the Republic of Croatia and administration, bodies of state and local government and self-government, universities, polytechnics, research centres, academies, institutes, travel agencies, business entities (enterprises), professional associations and others (e.g. banks, insurance agencies, political parties, NGOs, religious organisations etc.) as well as foreign enterprises, institutions and organisations.

Turnover generated by meetings or incentive travels in kuna (including VAT) includes the turnover of accommodation services, food services (restaurants, bar services, cafés), hire of the meeting rooms, display area and technical equipment when the reporting is being done by accommodation facilities, fair, universities, cultural institutions or other service providers.

Abbreviatins

ATV         All Terrain Vehicle

EFTA      European Free Trade Association

e.g.         for example (from Latin: exempli gratia)

etc.         and so on (from Latin: et cetera)

EU          European Union

incl.        including

NATO     North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

NGO      non-government organisation

OECD    Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development

VAT        value added tax

UN          United Nations

Symbols

-  no occurrence