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, 28 APRIL, 2009		NUMBER: 4.4.8/2.
				OBLIGED TO NOTIFY DATA SOURCE

CONGRESSES AND OTHER BUSINESS MEETINGS, FEBRUARY 2009

In February 2009, the number of business meetings held in the Republic of Croatia was 400. There were 179 meetings with overnight stays and 221 without them. The total number of days at business meetings was 734. Each meeting was held 2 days on the average. The number of participants at all meetings was 30 625, out of which the number of domestic participants was 28 948 (95%) and the number of foreign ones was 1 677 (5%).

According to professional organisers, the most meetings, 230 of them (58%), were organised by enterprises.

In February 2009, the turnover of 10 705 342 kuna was generated from business meetings. Out of the total turnover, 7 995 291 kuna (75%) was generated from meetings with overnight stays and 2 710 051 kuna (25%) from meetings without overnight stays.

In the period from January to February 2009, there were 635 business meetings held in the Republic of Croatia. Out of this number, there were 268 (42%) meetings with overnight stays and 367 (58%) without them. The total number of days at business meetings was 1 181. Business meetings were attended by 47 993 participants, out of which 45 447 (95%) domestic and 2 546 (5%) foreign ones.

In the period from January to February 2009, the total turnover generated from all business meetings held in the Republic of Croatia was 16 156 253 kuna. Out of this sum, 11 652 223 kuna (72%) were generated from meetings with overnight stays and 4 504 030 kuna (28%) from meetings without them.

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

	Business entities	Halls	Seats
Total	68	326	37 463
Hotels and similar accommodation facilities	62	269	21 625
Universities, fair, cultural institutions and other types of facilities in which business meetings are held	6	57	15 838

2.   BUSINESS MEETINGS HELD IN PERIOD FROM JANUARY TO FEBRUARY 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
II. 2009.
Total	400	734	30 625	24 244	6 381	13 072	10 705 342
Meetings with overnights	179	435	8 986	2 605	6 381	13 072	7 995 291
Meetings without overnights	221	299	21 639	21 639	-	-	2 710 051
I. – II. 2009.
Total	635	1 181	47 993	38 623	9 370	20 872	16 156 253
Meetings with overnights	268	674	13 577	4 207	9 370	20 872	11 652 223
Meetings without overnights	367	507	34 416	34 416	-	-	4 504 030

3.   BUSINESS MEETINGS, BY TYPE OF FACILITY IN WHICH BUSINESS MEETINGS WERE HELD, FEBRUARY 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	400	734	30 625	28 948	1 677	13 072	9 931	3 141	10 705 342
Hotels and similar accommodation facilities	374	692	22 233	20 556	1 677	13 072	9 931	3 141	10 482 237
Universities, fair, cultural institutions and other types of facilities in which business meetings are held	26	42	8 392	8 392	-	-	-	-	223 105

4.   BUSINESS MEETINGS, BY TYPE OF FACILITY IN WHICH BUSINESS MEETINGS WERE HELD, JANUARY – FEBRUARY 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	635	1 181	47 993	45 447	2 546	20 872	14 111	6 761	16 156 253
Hotels and similar accommodation facilities	598	1 128	37 781	35 235	2 546	20 872	14 111	6 761	15 851 060
Universities, fair, cultural institutions and other types of facilities in which business meetings are held	37	53	10 212	10 212	-	-	-	-	305 193

5.   BUSINESS MEETINGS, BY TYPE, FEBRUARY 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	400	734	30 625	28 948	1 677	13 072	9 931	3 141	10 705 342
Corporate/business meeting	134	236	6 319	5 584	735	2 568	1 671	897	2 731 932
Congress (forum, course of lectures, seminar, symposium)	198	390	15 677	14 906	771	8 992	7 051	1 941	6 493 146
Public conference/lecture	13	21	2 377	2 362	15	252	237	15	381 064
Governmental conferences	1	1	50	50	-	-	-	-	3 500
General assembly	6	6	1 514	1 514	-	4	4	-	15 809
Convention	2	2	1 312	1 312	-	-	-	-	72 923
Incentive arrangement	4	8	542	434	108	1 038	824	214	647 410
Team building	7	11	228	213	15	113	98	15	100 387
Other	35	59	2 606	2 573	33	105	46	59	259 171

6    BUSINESS MEETINGS, BY TYPES, JANUARY – FEBRUARY 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	635	1 181	47 993	45 447	2 546	20 872	14 111	6 761	16 156 253
Corporate/business meeting	205	363	9 496	8 694	802	3 609	2 400	1 209	4 268 775
Congress (forum, course of lectures, seminar, symposium)	326	642	26 193	24 652	1 541	15 258	10 044	5 214	9 637 269
Public conference/lecture	20	28	3 772	3 757	15	252	237	15	497 065
Governmental conferences	1	1	50	50	-	-	-	-	3 500
General assembly	9	11	2 154	2 154	-	4	4	-	29 209
Convention	2	2	1 312	1 312	-	-	-	-	72 923
Incentive arrangement	6	11	676	552	124	1 227	993	234	753 927
Team building	11	23	351	320	31	221	191	30	219 471
Other	55	100	3 989	3 956	33	301	242	59	674 114

7.   BUSINESS MEETINGS, BY PROFESSIONAL ORGANISER, FEBRUARY 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	400	734	30 625	28 948	1 677	13 072	9 931	3 141	10 705 342
International organisations	7	16	270	215	55	191	59	132	207 608
Croatian government, bodies of state and local government and self-government	28	50	1 432	1 426	6	948	938	10	649 819
Universities, polytechnics, academies, institutes	21	61	3 594	3 462	132	1 997	1 693	304	1 030 391
Travel agencies	19	27	1 623	1 236	387	1 220	809	411	1 170 854
Business entities (enterprises)	230	412	15 209	14 449	760	6 636	4 956	1 680	6 055 934
Professional associations	27	42	2 169	2 164	5	757	747	10	436 715
Other (banks, insurance agencies, political parties, NGOs)	51	96	5 672	5 633	39	843	709	134	603 769
Foreign enterprises, institutions, organisations	17	30	656	363	293	480	20	460	550 252

8.    BUSINESS MEETINGS, BY PROFESSIONAL ORGANISER, JANUARY – FEBRUARY 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	635	1 181	47 993	45 447	2 546	20 872	14 111	6 761	16 156 253
International organisations	12	38	462	347	115	580	141	439	747 263
Croatian government, bodies of state and local government and self-government	35	61	2 145	2 139	6	1 021	1 011	10	798 716
Universities, polytechnics, academies, institutes	33	88	4 840	4 702	138	2 667	2 345	322	1 676 304
Travel agencies	33	55	2 463	1 749	714	3 418	1 045	2 373	1 796 424
Business entities (enterprises)	369	659	25 862	24 890	972	8 128	5 919	2 209	8 265 641
Professional associations	45	83	3 182	3 116	66	1 949	1 498	451	809 053
Other (banks, insurance agencies, political parties,  NGOs)	81	148	7 994	7 932	62	2 220	2 040	180	1 267 231
Foreign enterprises, institutions, organisations	27	49	1 045	572	473	889	112	777	795 621

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