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 MAY, 2009		NUMBER: 4.4.8/3.
				OBLIGED TO NOTIFY DATA SOURCE

CONGRESSES AND OTHER BUSINESS MEETINGS, MARCH 2009

In March 2009, the number of business meetings held in the Republic of Croatia was 469. There were 211 meetings with overnight stays and 258 without them. The total number of days at business meetings was 822. Each meeting was held 2 days on the average. The number of participants at all meetings was 39 856, out of which the number of domestic participants was 38 335 (96%) and the number of foreign ones was 1 521 (4%).

According to professional organisers, the most meetings, 233 of them (50%), were organised by enterprises.

In March 2009, the turnover of 12 913 142 kuna was generated from business meetings. Out of the total turnover,
9 798 415 kuna (76%) was generated from meetings with overnight stays and 3 114 727 kuna (24%) from meetings without overnight stays.

In the period from January to March 2009, there were 1 104 business meetings held in the Republic of Croatia. Out of this number, there were 479 (43%) meetings with overnight stays and 625 (57%) without them. The total number of days at business meetings was 2 003. Business meetings were attended by 87 849 participants, out of which 83 782 (95%) domestic and 4 067 (5%) foreign ones.

In the period from January to March 2009, the total turnover generated from all business meetings held in the Republic of Croatia was 29 069 395 kuna. Out of this sum, 21 450 638 kuna (74%) were generated from meetings with overnight stays and 7 618 757 kuna (26%) from meetings without them.

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

	Business entities	Halls	Seats
Total	75	356	37 773
Hotels and similar accommodation facilities	69	299	21 935
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 MARCH 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
III. 2009.
Total	469	822	39 856	29 624	10 232	20 937	12 913 142
Meetings with overnights	211	483	14 948	4 716	10 232	20 937	9 798 415
Meetings without overnights	258	339	24 908	24 908	-	-	3 114 727
I. – III. 2009.
Total	1 104	2 003	87 849	68 247	19 602	41 809	29 069 395
Meetings with overnights	479	1 157	28 525	8 923	19 602	41 809	21 450 638
Meetings without overnights	625	846	59 324	59 324	-	-	7 618 757

3.    BUSINESS MEETINGS, BY TYPE OF FACILITY IN WHICH BUSINESS MEETINGS WERE HELD, MARCH 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	469	822	39 856	38 335	1 521	20 937	18 381	2 556	12 913 142
Hotels and similar accommodation facilities	433	786	31 236	29 720	1 516	20 937	18 381	2 556	12 513 706
Universities, fair, cultural institutions and other types of facilities in which business meetings are held	36	36	8 620	8 615	5	-	-	-	399 436

4.    BUSINESS MEETINGS, BY TYPE OF FACILITY IN WHICH BUSINESS MEETINGS WERE HELD, JANUARY – MARCH 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	1 104	2 003	87 849	83 782	4 067	41 809	32 492	9 317	29 069 395
Hotels and similar accommodation facilities	1 031	1 914	69 017	64 955	4 062	41 809	32 492	9 317	28 364 766
Universities, fair, cultural institutions and other types of facilities in which business meetings are held	73	89	18 832	18 827	5	-	-	-	704 629

5.  BUSINESS MEETINGS, BY TYPE, MARCH 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	469	822	39 856	38 335	1 521	20 937	18 381	2 556	12 913 142
Corporate/business meeting	135	195	7 193	6 883	310	1 572	1 176	396	2 426 579
Congress (forum, course of lectures, seminar, symposium)	251	484	24 135	23 430	705	17 804	16 327	1 477	8 920 216
Public conference/lecture	18	27	1 429	1 258	171	435	304	131	635 439
Governmental conferences	1	1	65	65	-	-	-	-	12 691
General assembly	15	17	2 365	2 365	-	20	20	-	57 095
Convention	1	1	70	70	-	-	-	-	19 066
Incentive arrangement	2	4	181	55	126	378	-	378	199 578
Team building	8	16	325	306	19	143	111	32	103 045
Other	38	77	4 093	3 903	190	585	443	142	539 433

6.    BUSINESS MEETINGS, BY TYPES, JANUARY – MARCH 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	1 104	2 003	87 849	83 782	4 067	41 809	32 492	9 317	29 069 395
Corporate/business meeting	340	558	16 689	15 577	1 112	5 181	3 576	1 605	6 695 354
Congress (forum, course of lectures, seminar, symposium)	577	1 126	50 328	48 082	2 246	33 062	26 371	6 691	18 557 485
Public conference/lecture	38	55	5 201	5 015	186	687	541	146	1 132 504
Governmental conferences	2	2	115	115	-	-	-	-	16 191
General assembly	24	28	4 519	4 519	-	24	24	-	86 304
Convention	3	3	1 382	1 382	-	-	-	-	91 989
Incentive arrangement	8	15	857	607	250	1 605	993	612	953 505
Team building	19	39	676	626	50	364	302	62	322 516
Other	93	177	8 082	7 859	223	886	685	201	1 213 547

7. BUSINESS MEETINGS, BY PROFESSIONAL ORGANISER, MARCH 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	469	822	39 856	38 335	1 521	20 937	18 381	2 556	12 913 142
International organisations	8	22	395	365	30	191	137	54	270 517
Croatian government, bodies of state and local government and self-government	24	51	1 328	1 300	28	1 174	1 116	58	612 416
Universities, polytechnics, academies, institutes	18	37	2 383	2 233	150	2 056	1 847	209	884 813
Travel agencies	33	72	4 487	4 365	122	5 824	5 407	417	2 181 887
Business entities (enterprises)	233	381	17 512	17 352	160	2 227	2067	160	3 717 471
Professional associations	54	88	4 937	4 854	83	4 302	4 185	117	2 282 453
Other (banks, insurance agencies, political parties, NGOs)	66	106	6 735	6 650	85	3 668	3 501	167	1 629 869
Foreign enterprises, institutions, organisations	33	65	2 079	1 216	863	1 495	121	1 374	1 333 716

8.    BUSINESS MEETINGS, BY PROFESSIONAL ORGANISER, JANUARY – MARCH 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	1 104	2 003	87 849	83 782	4 067	41 809	32 492	9 317	29 069 395
International organisations	20	60	857	712	145	771	278	493	1 017 780
Croatian government, bodies of state and local government and self-government	59	112	3 473	3 439	34	2 195	2 127	68	1 411 132
Universities, polytechnics, academies, institutes	51	125	7 223	6 935	288	4 723	4 192	531	2 561 117
Travel agencies	66	127	6 950	6 114	836	9 242	6 452	2 790	3 978 311
Business entities (enterprises)	602	1 040	43 374	42 242	1 132	10 355	7 986	2 369	11 983 112
Professional associations	99	171	8 119	7 970	149	6 251	5 683	568	3 091 506
Other (banks, insurance agencies, political parties,  NGOs)	147	254	14 729	14 582	147	5 888	5 541	347	2 897 100
Foreign enterprises, institutions, organisations	60	114	3 124	1 788	1 336	2 384	233	2 151	2 129 337

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