Conventa
Conventa’ s coming of age in Ljubljana
Ramy James Salameh reports on Conventa 2025, the south-east Europe meetings show heading towards its 18th
his year the Conventa
T trade fair, which in late February marked its 17th edition in Slovenia’ s‘ green’ capital Ljubljana, saw the regional meetings industry showcase transition from adolescence to young adulthood, reflecting the progress of the country’ s own MICE aspirations. Conventa may be boutique in size, but huge in terms of relevance to the entire region of central and southeastern Europe. Show organisers are keen to place the emphasis on‘ quality’ under the tagline‘ less is more’ which also refers to Conventa’ s sustainability and eco-sensitive event policies. This year, of 608 hosted buyer applications, just under 30 % were accepted, alongside 145 exhibitors from 18 countries.
Over the years, through the matchmaking system, organisers have scheduled 52,563 meetings between hosted buyers and suppliers helping to bolster the claim that Ljubljana is the meetings hub of‘ New Europe’. Key stakeholders in Conventa include the Slovenian Convention Bureau and Toleranca Marketing, Ljubljana Tourism, the Slovenian Tourist Organisation and 20 strategic partners. This year audiences heard about the national CVB’ s‘ Strategy for the Meetings Industry 2025-2030’ – a roadmap for the local events industry.
“ We are now in a phase where we are not an undiscovered destination. Thus, we need the tools and infrastructure to support this and hopefully the data( from the strategy roadmap) will help us,” says Gorazd Čad, co-founder of Conventa.
Slovenia’ s geography and culture lends itself as a destination for incentives, but Čad believes the product is not quite there, with more infrastructure needed to properly support the association market. The idea is that the Meetings Industry 2025-2030 strategy report will help
Left: Conventa ' s trademark ' applebox ' wood stand design showcasing the green standard again
Photo: Marko Delbello Ocepek steer a course to achieving that. The preliminary results of the research will be announced in July 2025.
Jan Oršič, head of Ljubljana Convention Bureau, says infrastructural changes are already happening in the city:“ Twenty minutes from Ljubljana, we have a new hotel-based convention centre opening, ideal for the automotive industry, offering multipurpose halls hosting up to 300 people. Refurbishment of Ljubljana’ s rail and bus infrastructure is underway, meaning Trieste Airport, Venice, Zagreb, Vienna, Munich and Milan will eventually be 1-6 hours away by rail. British Airways will be coming back for the summer season, all of which will make Ljubljana a multimodular mobility hub”.
‘ Campfire’ sessions at Conventa promoted key assets of destination exhibitors: Poland and Montenegro brought their largest contingent of exhibitors and Serbia’ s delegation delivered a major presentation on hosting EXPO2027 in Belgrade.
Sustainability – Conventa’ s guiding light In 2016, Ljubljana became European Green Capital; and has been on the Global 100 Sustainable Destinations list for many years. Conventa is also rightly proud of winning several‘ green’ accolades over the years.
“ We can use Conventa to help influence the behaviour of participants, and through Planet Positive Events we have designed a tool to measure impacts, which can support meeting planners for their own events,” adds Čad.
This year, dedicated green team members showcased to delegates a‘ Waste Weighing Station’ to measure the daily waste generated from the event, and invited them to use Carbon Calculators on interactive-screens to assess their carbon footprints. EW
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