Just four years ago Lyon didn’t even figure in the top 100 conference destinations worldwide or the top 50 European destinations, and on a national level we were only

in third or fourth position , recalls François Gaillard, MD of Lyon’s Tourist and Conference Office. What a lot of catching up they’ve done since then. In 2004, the renowned Capital of the Gauls registered 77^th position worldwide achieving a spectacular leap in 2006 to 30^th position worldwide and 19^th

in Europe. In France it came second after Paris, ahead of both Strasbourg and Nice, its main rivals on the business

tourism market!

Added to which, please take note, its 42 major international events in 2006 made it a more successful destination than cities such as Hong Kong, Sydney, Chicago or Shanghai… Such an impressive performance is worth highlighting, and the city’s Tourist Office thinks Lyon’s success is based on the fact that it has developed a strong sense of working together amongst the various economic partners involved and also that it can offer a very varied product based on three main sites: the Cité Internationale, Eurexpo and the Halle Tony Garnier .

It is evident that this increased success is also largely due to the opening of Amphithéâtre 3000 which can offer space for 3,220 people. This space has given us the opportunity to organise really big events, continues the Tourist Office. In 2005, there was just one convention for 3000+ people in Lyon, but in 2007 there were seven .  The number of congress days has gone from 1,145,064 in 2004 to 1,744,539 in 2006 representing a projected turnover of 259 million euros as opposed to 170 two years previously… And the projected figures for 2007, with 12 conventions of between 1000 and 9000 participants, should be even better and there are already 15 major events on the calendar for 2008, including the annual conference for American travel agents, Maison de la France’s Rendez-vous France, and EUROECHO, the largest echocardiograph event in Europe.

The whole local economy benefits from this boom in business, with tourism in general representing between 20,000 and 25,000 jobs in the Lyon area. The increase in business can be explained by our implementation of a double strategy, explains François Gaillard. In the first instance we’ve demonstrated an aggressive push on the sales front and we’ve been able to better register the number of international conferences because not all of them take place in the Palais des Congrès. I even think that our 2007 figures are going to go through the roof because the impact of the Amphitéâtre, open since June 2006, will only be felt in the second half of this year. I think we’re going to keep progressing in the international classifications, and we’ll probably get close to the top 15 European destinations .

Despite all of this, François Gaillard is very aware of the fact that the Amphithéâtre’s novelty will be less influential after 2008 because we have to recognise that a whole load more new conference centres are opening up throughout the world. However, we should continue to follow an aggressive sales plan and at the end of the day it will be the quality of service that will make the difference. We’re extremely lucky to have a major player in the events sector on the ground in Lyon, General Events, with its ability to play the networking card over the various sites it manages. And then there’s the arrival of a low-cost airline, and the opening of two airline routes from Lyon to Moscow and to New York, all of which will benefit the business tourism sector as well as the individual tourism market, making Lyon an important European destination .