International Congresses as a Way to Promote the Siberian Region

Today Novosibirsk dwellers often hear about discussions in the media devoted to the development of our city and region. Specialists are in search of various development tendencies and trends suitable for our city. We now understand that we need to fulfill our tasks in a strategic way. One of the trends worth considering is congress activities that can be successfully implemented at the territory of Novosibirsk.

Global turnover brought by congress activities equaled 800 billion euros in 2012. But the Russian Federation share was less than one percent. Exhibitions are very common in Russia. This sector of economy has high and stable profits but it must be noted that the share of exhibitions held in other countries of the world is eight times less than the turnover in the field of congress activities.     

Novosibirsk is the geographic center of Eurasia. This is not just a beautiful phrase or a metaphor, that’s a fact.  Distances don’t matter for us that much: it is normal for a person living in Novosibirsk to go 600 km away from the city only to go skiing on weekend. Within an area of 500 km there are 9 million people, and there are 20 million people within an area of 100 km. Congresses held in Novosibirsk can receive a huge amount of visitors.

Congresses allow uniting important elements: science, industry, business, and economy. We have Academgorodok (Academic Town) nearby, and this resource must be used because today science and business exist separately!  

All the time we pretend that Novosibirsk is a young city just because of its young age, that it’s very energetic and full of students. Our region, of course, has its original history but we can hardly rival Novgorod or Kazan in this respect. Alongside all other reasons, developing congress activities is promising for Novosibirsk since that can help us develop business tourism. Business tourism in this sector is getting more and more profitable every year.    

I’d also like to say that we have an airport in our city, which is trying to avoid control of central authorities – to give people living in Novosibirsk and the Siberian Region oportunities to fly to other countries without the need to get on other planes in Moscow. 

One last thing is the Novosibirsk Expocenter. You can see for yourselves that it is a convenient platform for conducting congresses with comfort.