Convention Market Profile
The UIA 2001 statistics show that 9,259 international conferences worldwide were held in 2001, a decrease of 1.84 % compared to 2000 and 1,189 in Asian countries, a decline of 3.97%. However, as shown in Table 1, Korea hosted 134 international conferences, making a substantial increase of 22.9%, ranking as the 18th worldwide. Moreover, Table 2 shows that Korea placed number three among Asian countries in 2001 followed by Japan and China (including Hong Kong), accounting for 11.3% of the Asian convention market. In 2000, Korea ranked as the 24th worldwide and the 4th in the Asian region.Looking at the world leading cities hosting international meetings (Table 3), Seoul ranked as the 8th in 2001 with 107 international conferences, which shows a significant improvement compared with the pre-