Q: How can international meeting planners benefit from bringing their conference to Ekaterinburg?
Uniqueness combined with economy and comfort. Ekaterinburg is an industrial and mining and metallurgical center of Russia. This is a modern metropolis in the heart of the country, which is the most compact city among other million cities of Russia. Modern transport, hotel, congress infrastructure allows you to host events of any level. An important factor is the prices for services that are significantly lower than in the capital cities.
Q: What are Ekaterinburg’s strengths for the meeting sector?
Infrastructure. The largest and most modern congress center, located just 5 minutes from the international airport, which is the best regional airport in the CIS countries. In addition, Ekaterinburg is one of the largest business, scientific and cultural centers of Russia, which allows us to provide events of various sectors with a relevant audience. Creatively, it was the London 2012 Festival which formed the cultural side of the Olympics. We had a team of people working specifically on creating ideas for the free outdoor arts festival. We probably spent a good year working on it and making sure we had to make sure we a wide variety of creative events for the 7-week period over the summer.
Q: What large events are coming to the city in the near future?
Sporting events: World Boxing Championship this year, Universiade in 2023, World Dance Championship (December 2019). Business events: International specialized exhibition “Recycling” (autumn 2019), Innoprom 2020.
Q: How do you foresee the future of MICE in Ekaterinburg?
The regional government considers the economy of events one of the drivers of development. Therefore, attention is paid to the development of appropriate infrastructure, destination marketing, improvement of the quality of service provision, the formation of a sustainable MICE-community in the region. Without a doubt, these efforts will lead to the development of the industry. Our main mission is to create the largest congress, exhibition and event industry center in Russia on the border of Europe and Asia.
“Incentive in the Urals – something that will not be forgotten.”
Q: What are your top tips for incentives in your city?
Incentive in the Urals: a unique opportunity to combine field conferences, seminars, incentive events for employees with team tours, such as a jeep safari tour to the Ural mountains, horseback riding, catamaran, and kayak rafting, golf playing, ski activism. Incentive in the Urals – something that will not be forgotten.
Q: Where are you positioning your marketing efforts this year and next year?
We started to actively position Ekaterinburg as MICE destination quite recently. In the next 2 years, we plan to focus on working with large Russian customers and events organizers. For this, we use both Russian and foreign promotional venues (IMEX, IBTM, ST PETERSBURG INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC FORUM ).
 by the Government of the Sverdlovsk region. Agency supports companies from Russia and abroad.){kind=link}