In what is a huge triumph for the city, Montréal has been named the top host city in North America for international associative events, according to the 2009 ICCA International Congress and Convention Association official rankings. This comes only a few days after the Palais des congrès de Montréal announced its selection as one of the finalists for the 2010 APEX Award recognizing the World’s Best Congress Centre, to be presented in July by the AIPC International Association of Congress Centres. Montréal’s leading venue for major international meetings, the Palais welcomes thousands of convention delegates each year and generates significant intellectual and economic spinoffs for the city and the province of Québec as whole.

“This is a huge victory for the city’s convention centre, which has hosted over 1,000 major events since it opened in 1983, but also a worthy recognition of the hard work performed daily by the teams of Tourisme Montréal and the Palais,” declared Marc Tremblay, President and CEO of the Palais. “We succeeded in standing out among other convention centres thanks to our many enviable assets, including our flexible facilities, our location in the heart of the city, the expertise and passion of our staff, and of course our venue’s unique design,” added Tremblay. Since 2007, the Palais has appeared in Mark Irving’s 1001 Buildings You Must See Before You Die.

“Tourisme Montréal is extremely proud of this distinction, which attests to the excellence of our tourist industry with regards to international meetings and conferences,” says the Honourable Charles Lapointe, President and CEO of Tourisme Montréal, “The well-known adage that there is ‘strength in numbers’ applies here, as this result represents the culmination of a concerted effort of the entire Montréal team, who works tirelessly to make our city a destination of choice for business professionals the world over. Tourisme Montréal would particularly like to extend its appreciation to the staff at the Palais des congrès who, by their exceptional commitment and incomparable quality of their services, have helped to establish Montréal not only as the foremost destination for international meetings in North America, but also fourth in the Americas as a whole,” concludes Charles Lapointe.

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