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plenary Vienna and Access 2012 CONVENE ON SITE
Getting the Royal Treatment in Vienna
Positively Palatial The baroque Palais Daun-Kinsky can be reserved for groups of 20 to 180.
Convene, to the city for an Access 2012 hosted-buyer program. We arrived via Austria Airlines at
Vienna International Airport, where a recently opened terminal allows for a quick and painless connection to the City Airport Train (CAT), which takes travelers to the city center in 16 minutes and stops directly at the 579- room Hilton Vienna, the city’s largest conference hotel. I was with a group of North American hosted buyers stay- ing at the 458-room InterContinental Vienna, a short walk from the station across Stadtpark, whose curving paths, gardens, and many statues reminded me of a smaller version of New York’s Central Park. Vienna’s walkability is one of its
major charms: Walls built to protect the city from outside attack remained standing until the middle of the 19th century, keeping the city cen- ter remarkably compact. Our hosts provided a pass for Vienna’s subway and tram system, but the cobblestone streets proved so easy to navigate that I found myself walking everywhere. We got to know the city — and each
A
lthough many cities describe their venues as palatial, few can do it as convincingly as Vienna,
where Access 2012, an annual trade show highlighting the Austrian meetings industry, was held on Sept. 24–25 at the Hofurg Palace, the grand former resi- dence of the Habsburg royal family and
30 PCMA CONVENE DECEMBER 2012
now the site of the HOFBURG Vienna conference center. The palace is in the city’s center — listed as a World Cul- tural Heritage Site by UNESCO — and was just one of many historic venues on the itinerary when the Vienna Con- vention Bureau and partners brought meeting planners and media, including
other — better on our first afternoon by participating in a “riddle rallye,” a scavenger-hunt–style game, which we played in teams, deciphering clues pre-loaded onto a smartphone app. The game led us to such gems as Café Demel, renowned for its pastries and chocolate, and culminated in an open-air reception at the University of Vienna, a popular venue for scientific and academic conferences. Consis- tently ranked as the top city in the world for international meetings by the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA), Vienna hosts more than 2,000 scientific conferences and