MEETINGS INDUSTRY IN SECOND TIER CITIES

Abstract

The development of the meetings industry is related to development of business tourism to cities. There is an increasing number of meeting venues and multifunctional arenas along with events and visitors. It is related to the growth of global and economic, political, socio-cultural changes and new technologies. The benefits of the meetings industry are result from the attractiveness of business tourism as a city product and a form of city promotion. The changes taking place in the meetings market encourage local government of cities, that are not capitals (so called "second tier cities”), to more actively apply for the organisation of large international events. The city administration that wants to develop business tourism in their area, has to take into account many conditions in their destination (city) management. The key external and internal factors affecting the development of business tourism second tier cities have been identified in the article. The methods of literature analysis of the subject, passive observation of events and data from previous publications have been applied for the research.