Leipzig is a very popular MICE destination. It offers numerous cutting-edge facilities, a top-class infrastructure with excellent transport connections and an outstanding choice of hotels, restaurants, and cultural offerings. The world’s oldest city of trade fairs has become a centre of science, research, and innovation. It is home to some of the world’s most renowned brands, including Porsche and BMW. Here, Hiskia Wiesner of Leipzig Tourismus und Marketing, describes the benefits of hosting a business event in Leipzig.

Whether it’s the New York Times, the Guardian or Tagesspiegel – everybody is talking about Leipzig and its innovative and lively art and culture scene. This popularity is also inspiring the city’s congress business. In 2014, Feel the spirit…do-it-at-leipzig.de and Leipzig Tourismus und Marketing (LTM) jointly published an alternative city guide entitled Hidden Leipzig – Off the Beaten Track. This guide invites congress participants and event planners to look beyond the usual tourist routes and into Leipzig’s city districts. The focus is on hidden gems, green oases and places where creativity thrives and where the spirit that Leipzig’s inhabitants appreciate so much becomes palpable.

The Feel the spirit…do-it-at-leipzig.de initiative has seen success for several years now. Managed by LTM, this powerful network unites 48 enterprises that jointly promote Leipzig as a congress destination. An interactive website – www.do-it-at-leipzig.com – offers clear information on event options in Leipzig and the support offered by qualified service providers.

In recent years, Leipzig has developed into a top congress destination. Leipziger Messe’s CCL Congress Center Leipzig has played the outstanding role in this process. As one of the world’s oldest trade fairs, it is celebrating 850 years of Leipzig trade fairs in 2015. The 2015 calendar also lists the 600th anniversary of Leipzig University’s medical faculty. Thanks to the close cooperation of CCL with Leipzig University as well as with the city’s various academies, institutes, clinics and research institutions, numerous top-class international meetings can be brought to Leipzig.

For many years, CCL has hosted the LINC Leipzig Interventional Course, one of the most important international meetings in the field of minimally invasive vascular medicine. Mentioned as an example of best practice in the German Convention Bureau’s Future Study publication, the concept of this congress has already become a trendsetter. Among the congresses set to take place are the congress of the European Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases in May 2015, which will attract about 3,500 participants, and the EuroEcho Imaging congress in 2016, which will see an estimated 4,000 heart specialists gather from all over Europe. This clearly distinguishes Leipzig as place of competence in cardiology.

Another 2015 highlight will be the opening of the Kongresshalle am Zoo Leipzig – a modern meeting centre with a historical ambience. It is centrally located and offers rooms and halls with a capacity from 10 to 1,200 people as well as plenty of foyer and lounge space for individual event planning.

In 1759, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing said: “I have come to Leipzig, a place where you can see the world in miniature.” These words remain true today.