Lisbon crowned world's top city for international meetings

The findings, unveiled at IMEX Frankfurt, drew on data from more than 12,438 international association meetings held across 162 countries and territories and 1,603 cities worldwide.

Lisbon finished ahead of Paris and Barcelona to claim the top spot on the city rankings, with Vienna, Singapore, Prague, Copenhagen, London, Seoul and Tokyo completing the top ten.

At country level, Portugal placed 8th globally, behind the United States, Italy, Germany, Spain and the UK, which came in 5th.

Europe continues to dominate the global meetings industry, accounting for 53 per cent of all events analysed, well ahead of Asia Pacific (22 per cent) and North America (10 per cent).

Medical sciences, technology and science remain the leading subject areas driving international gatherings, while this year's report also introduced a new metric tracking venue types, with convention and exhibition centres remaining the anchor of major event destinations.

Paul Stannard, chairman and founder of Portugal Pathways and the Portugal Investment Owners Club, said: “For Lisbon, this accolade is further validation of a city that has spent the past decade transforming itself into a genuine global events hub, one capable of attracting everything from scientific congresses to the world's largest technology gathering.

“Nowhere is that transformation more visible than at Web Summit, the tech conference that has called Lisbon home since 2016. Having outgrown its Dublin origins, the event has become the largest technology gathering on the planet, and its most recent edition underlined why the city continues to punch so far above its weight on the global stage.”

Web Summit 2025 welcomed a record 71,386 attendees from 157 countries, alongside 2,725 exhibiting startups from 108 countries and 1,857 investors, a 74 per cent jump on the previous year. Nearly 200 startups from the 2024 edition went on to secure post-event funding totalling more than $715 million, a striking illustration of the commercial firepower such events bring to a host city.

For four days each November, Lisbon effectively becomes the beating heart of the global innovation economy, filling hotels, restaurants and venues across the city and generating exactly the kind of high-value, high-spend visitor traffic that underpins ICCA's rankings.

That pulling power is echoed in the wider meetings industry data. As Saf Ismail, CEO of London's QEII Centre, noted in response to the same ICCA report, international business event delegates spend at a ratio of four to one compared with domestic visitors, with non-European visitors to the UK averaging £1,824 per trip.

The same principle applies in Lisbon: business tourism of this calibre leaves a far deeper economic footprint than conventional leisure travel.

Portugal's international profile is set to rise still further before the decade is out. In 2030, the country will co-host the FIFA World Cup alongside Spain and Morocco, marking the first time the tournament has been shared across three nations spanning two continents.

For Portugal, the tournament promises a significant boost to tourism, infrastructure investment and global visibility, adding sporting prestige to the reputation for business events and innovation that Lisbon has already built through Web Summit and its growing calendar of international congresses.

Taken together, the ICCA rankings, Web Summit's continued growth and the approaching World Cup point to a clear trajectory: Lisbon, and Portugal more broadly, are firmly established on the world stage, with further momentum still to come.

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