International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA)’s 2019 statistics captured 13,254 rotating association meetings, the highest ever recorded annual figure in its yearly statistics, with an increase of 317 from last year’s record-breaking figures.

14 May 2020, Prague – Prague meetings industry is an essential part of the Czech capital city’s and country’s tourism, as well as of their economy. Based on an analysis conducted by KPMG for the Prague Convention Bureau in 2017, the meetings industry accounts for 15% of the overall tourism industry in Prague. At the same time, it is also the sector most affected by the crisis that incurred from the COVID-19 disease outbreak. According to the latest study by the Economic Impact company, revenues in multiplication may drop by more than 20 billion crowns in 2020. This represents a decrease of 74%, when compared with expected sales in case the emergency situation had not occurred.

In 2019, the employment growth in Prague, the capital city of the Czech Republic, in both the public and private sectors was negative (-0.3% and -0.1%, respectively); this trend started in 2018 in the private sector (-2.3% y-o-y). Prague workforce reaches almost 576,000 people, a downward trend for two consecutive years from almost 587,000 in 2017 (up from 534,200 in 2011).

As we start a new decade, the forces shaping the European renewables sector are familiar enough, but the longer-term future in each market is becoming harder to predict.

State action—for example, in the form of renewables support auctions—remains key. However, the tasks facing governments and regulators are multiplying and becoming more complex, particularly as decarbonization becomes as much a matter of industrial policy as of energy market regulation.