Seoul City to host many international events

Seoul has won the right to host about 100 major international events by 2018, thanks to its efforts to become one of the top convention cities in the world.

City officials said Thursday that the international events would each draw more than 1,000 participants. They include the World Federation of Societies of Intensive and Critical Care Medicine, to be held in 2015 with more than 8,000 participants.

The fields of the events vary from medicine and mathematics to architecture. Among renowned world medical academic conferences to take place in Seoul are the 2017 conference of the International Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons and the 20th World Congress of International Federation of Oto-Rhino-Laryngological Societies in 2013.

“We expect the economic effect of the events to reach about 1.3 trillion won ($1.1 billion) in total from hosting the international events, which will also make great contributions to the fields related to the conferences,” city officials said.

A total of four international events are expected to be held in Seoul next year, including the 12th International Congress on Mathematical Education to be attended by about 3,500 people, and the Nuclear Security Summit which will bring over 10,000 figures here.

Selected as one of the world’s top five convention cities by the Union of International Associations last June, Seoul has succeeded in hosting about 92 percent of the events it applied for, according to officials.

The city attributes the high success rate to the conference consulting service of the Seoul Convention Bureau, which designs strategies to win the rights to host the events and helps prepare bid proposals and English presentations.

“Seoul will boost the convention business, which is expected to have a greater ripple effect on other industries through large spending from participants. The city government will step up its efforts to promote the city as one of the world’s best convention cities,” said Ahn Seung-il, director of culture and tourism of the city government.

By Lee Woo-young  (wylee@heraldcorp.com)