Why Is Lisbon Now the World's Top City for International Association Meetings?

For most of the past decade, anyone asked to name the world's busiest city for international association meetings would have reached for the same handful of answers: Vienna, Paris, Barcelona, maybe Singapore. The International Congress and Convention Association tracks exactly this question every year, and its newest report, the ICCA GlobeWatch Country and City Rankings 2025, unveiled at IMEX Frankfurt in May, gives a different answer than most planners would expect. Lisbon is now the number one city in the world for rotating international association congresses, ahead of every capital that usually tops this list.

How Lisbon Reached the Top of the Table

ICCA counted 188 qualifying meetings in Lisbon for 2025, up from 153 the year before, drawing more than 100,000 delegates to the Portuguese capital. Paris climbed back to second place with 174 meetings, a recovery after the city slipped to sixth in 2024 while hosting the Olympic Games narrowed its usual congress calendar. Barcelona held third with 166 meetings, and Vienna, which led the world as recently as last year's ranking, fell to fourth with 159. The four cities are close enough in raw numbers that next year's edition could easily reshuffle the podium again, but for 2025 the title belongs to Lisbon outright.

What Actually Moved the Needle

ICCA's own framing of the result is worth taking seriously, because it runs against the explanation planners usually reach for first. Coverage of the report points less to Lisbon's convention center capacity or hotel room count, both respectable but not exceptional by European standards, and more to the depth of its scientific, medical, technology, and academic communities: the local researchers, professional bodies, and universities that actually bid for and chair international congresses. A convention center can host a meeting once the bid is won, but it rarely wins that bid on its own. That work happens years earlier, inside a city's research institutions and professional associations, a slower and less visible kind of destination marketing than a new exhibition hall opening.

Europe Still Writes Most of the Rules

Zoom out from the podium and the picture looks familiar. Europe accounted for 53 percent of every meeting ICCA tracked in 2025 and claimed seven of the top ten cities: Lisbon, Paris, Barcelona, and Vienna at the top, followed by Prague, Copenhagen, and London. Singapore, Seoul, and Tokyo are the only non-European cities to crack the top ten, holding fifth, ninth, and tenth place respectively. For planners choosing between an established European congress city and an emerging destination elsewhere, this year's data is a reminder that the shift toward Asia and the Middle East so often discussed on industry panels has not yet reached the very top of the association meetings table, even if it is visible further down the list.

The Country Rankings Tell a Slightly Different Story

Switch from cities to countries and the United States keeps its usual place at number one, with 792 qualifying meetings, a wide enough margin that no single European capital's rise threatens it. Italy holds second, Germany third, Spain fourth, and the United Kingdom fifth. Japan is the biggest mover in the top ten, climbing two spots to sixth, ahead of France, Portugal, and the Netherlands. China rounds out the top ten, its meetings spread across enough cities that none individually cracks the city table, a pattern that shows how a country ranking and a city ranking can tell genuinely different stories about where an industry is actually growing.

A Record Year for the Industry as a Whole

Set the rankings aside for a moment and the underlying volume is its own story. ICCA tracked 12,438 international association meetings in 2025, an increase of 1,339 meetings, or 10.8 percent, over 2024, spread across 162 countries and territories and 1,603 cities. The association put direct expenditure from those meetings at 13.57 billion dollars. After several years in which the industry's own trade press kept asking whether association meetings had fully recovered from the pandemic-era pause, a double-digit increase in tracked meetings is a clearer answer than any single destination's ranking.

What This Means for Your Next RFP

None of this means Vienna, Paris, or Barcelona stop belonging on a shortlist. All three remain in the top four for good reason, with infrastructure and experience a newer contender cannot match overnight. What the ranking does argue for is checking that assumption rather than defaulting to it. If your organization's congress has rotated between the same three or four European cities for a decade, Lisbon's rise is evidence that a city's underlying research and professional community, not just its convention center brochure, is worth weighing before the next bid goes out. And if your association is weighing a first move outside Europe, this year's numbers are a useful reality check: the shift is real further down the rankings, but at the very top, Europe is still writing most of the rules.

Key Takeaways

• ICCA's GlobeWatch Country and City Rankings 2025, unveiled at IMEX Frankfurt in May 2026, name Lisbon the world's top city for international association meetings, with 188 meetings and more than 100,000 delegates, up from 153 meetings in 2024.
• Paris returned to second place with 174 meetings after a 2024 Olympic-year dip, Barcelona held third with 166, and Vienna, last year's leader, fell to fourth with 159.
• Coverage of the report ties Lisbon's rise less to convention center or hotel capacity and more to the strength of its scientific, medical, technology, and academic communities that bid for and chair congresses.
• Europe held 53 percent of all tracked meetings and seven of the top ten cities; Singapore, Seoul, and Tokyo were the only non-European cities in the top ten.
• The United States led the country rankings with 792 meetings, followed by Italy, Germany, Spain, and the UK, with Japan climbing two spots to sixth; ICCA tracked a record 12,438 meetings worldwide in 2025, up 10.8 percent, worth 13.57 billion dollars in direct expenditure.

Data sources: ICCA, ICCA Releases ICCA GlobeWatch: Business Analytics – Country & City Rankings 2025 at IMEX Frankfurt, Skift Meetings, Lisbon Tops ICCA's Association Meeting Rankings, Meetings & Incentive Travel, US and Lisbon top ICCA rankings, Association Meetings International, US and Lisbon top ICCA Rankings, Voyages d'Affaires, ICCA Rankings: Paris back on the podium, behind Lisbon, Conference & Meetings World, USA and Lisbon top the 2025 ICCA GlobeWatch rankings.