Vienna
Vienna impresses with its excellent event infrastructure, high service standards and outstanding array of art and culture.

Destination Overview

Why Vienna for your next meeting or event

Vienna impresses with its excellent event infrastructure, high service standards and outstanding array of art and culture. The city combines its rich imperial heritage with everything that a modern, forward-looking city has to offer. Nearly half of Vienna is made up of green spaces, making it the greenest metropolis in the world.

Excellent connectivity

Located in the centre of Europe, Vienna is very accessible. More than 60 airlines provide regular connections with 190 destinations worldwide. The majority of European capitals are three hours or less by plane. Austria’s national carrier, Austrian Airlines – part of Lufthansa Group and a Star Alliance Airline – is happy to support meetings as ‘Official Carrier’ with tailor-made offers. Vienna airport is only 20 minutes from the city centre by the City Airport Train (CAT).

Local support and expertise

The Vienna Convention Bureau has an outstanding team of professionals to assist event planners every step of the way.

© WienTourismus/Christian Stemper

Trail-blazing public transport

Vienna is a safe and clean international capital with famously reliable and efficient infrastructure. Studies confirm that its excellent public transportation network is among the top performers anywhere in the world. Five subway lines, 28 tram lines and 131 bus routes transport around two million passengers each day. Suburban trains and regional services are operated by Austrian National Railways (ÖBB), whose Nightjet services make Vienna the largest overnight passenger rail hub in the European Union and connects Europe's major cities by train.

International Vienna

Vienna is home to more than 40 intergovernmental organisations and is one of just four major office sites of the United Nations (UN). Thanks to an impressive history of diplomacy, there are more than 3,800 diplomats and 6,000 international functionaries living in Vienna and working at more than 130 bilateral – and multilateral – diplomatic missions. In addition, more than 200 multinational corporations take advantage of the city's high quality of life, safety and multinational flair.

© WienTourismus/David Payr

Most liveable city in the world

In June 2023, Vienna ranked first in the Economist’s ‘Global Liveability Index’ once again and confirmed its place as ‘most liveable city in the world’. In addition to criteria such as healthcare, education, infrastructure and culture, Vienna scored particularly well in the areas of safety and stability, aspects that are particularly relevant for meeting planners and delegates.

Number one global meeting destination

Consequently, it is no surprise that Vienna is one of the leading meeting destinations worldwide. The ‘2022 ICCA Ranking – Destination Performance Index (DPI)’ listed the Austrian capital as number one. 

Meeting & event venues

Uniquely diverse

In Vienna, meeting attendees can feel and experience the city’s imperial majesty while engaging with a modern city that is constantly developing. Despite its comparatively small size – most attractions are only a few (walking or public transport) minutes away from venues and hotels – Vienna boasts a unique variety of meeting locations. From impressive museums, historic concert and university halls to state-of-the-art rooftop bars or locations surrounded by forests and vineyards, more than 240 venues and three conference centres for meetings for up to 29,000 people are available in the city.

Convention centres

With the Austria Center Vienna, the HOFBURG Vienna as well as the Messe Wien Exhibition & Congress Center, Meeting Destination Vienna has three convention centres close to the city centre.

  • Austria Center Vienna: the country's largest convention centre with a variety of large, flexible spaces that is unique in Europe, the Austria Center Vienna offers outstanding digital solutions, spacious LED displays, outdoor areas and a strong IT infrastructure for innovative event concepts.
  • HOFBURG Vienna: with modern glass architecture, spacious state rooms and extensive state-of-the-art technology, the HOFBURG Vienna is a former imperial residence that harmoniously combines the past with the contemporary.
  • Messe Wien Exhibition & Congress Center: flexible multifunctional spaces and an ultra-modern (IT) infrastructure make the Messe Wien Exhibition & Congress Center one of Europe's most versatile event, conference & exhibition facilities.

Hilton Vienna Park: With 663 guest rooms and more than 3,500 sqm of flexible event space, Hilton Vienna Park is Europe’s largest downtown Meeting and Event Hotel. Its location, adjacent to the beautiful Stadtpark, is right in the heart of Vienna and yet just 16 minutes from the airport via the City Airport Train.

Hotels

With more than 400 hotels and around 37,000 rooms to suit all tastes and budgets, and many exciting new hotel projects, meeting planners will be spoilt for choice for accommodation.

The Hotel Imperial opened just days before the 1873 World’s Fair and this year marks its 150th anniversary. One of the first palace hotels in the world, it is still one of the most famous. The Leo Grand puts an eclectic, contemporary spin on Baroque opulence while the elegant Rosewood Vienna opened last year. The city offers plenty of hotels that make for a memorable stay and offer magnificent event spaces.

Recently opened

Hotel Gilbert is a new four-star property that epitomises much of the spirit of the city. It prides itself on offering ‘an open-minded house that thrives on diversity and celebrates community’. Family run, it offers 57 contemporary rooms, a living wall on its exterior and a ‘root to leaf’ restaurant as well as two meeting rooms.

The Almanac Palais Vienna  is a new five-star hotel created from two historic buildings that offers a refined colour palette and elegant design on Vienna’s Ringstrasse, possibly one of the world’s most beautiful boulevards. It offers gorgeous meeting spaces for up to 200 people.

New luxury boutique hotel The Amauris Vienna opened earlier this year and is the first in the city to be part of the Relais & Chateaux luxury hotel and restaurant association. It offers 62 rooms and suites decorated with stunning artworks.

The O11 Boutique Hotel, located just a few steps from the Vienna State Opera and historic Burggarten, takes music as its inspiration. Its President Suite is fitted with an upmarket sound system and a DJ booth. In the hotel’s basement is club Heidi.

The Urbanauts Studios Fillgrader opened this summer in what was once a theatre in fashionable Mariahilf district. Theatrical props abound and guests can choose from 14 apartments each with its own kitchenette.

Just open, the Moxy Vienna City East is the Marriott Group’s second young urban boutique hotel in the city. Known for their hip design and sense of fun, in addition to the 203 Moxy rooms there will be 43 long-stay apartments operated by Residence Inn by Marriott. The hotel is located in Neu Marx, close to the Marx Hall, a striking, listed former cattle hall that is now an important event venue in the city. A new event arena for concerts and sporting events seating 20,000 people will be built in the immediate vicinity over the next few years.

Coming soon

Opposite Vienna's UNO-City and close to the Austria Center Vienna, Hotel Schani UNO-City will open in early 2024. With a modern design, it will have 202 rooms and several meeting spaces. Extremely high-tech and designed with sustainability in mind, all rooms will be equipped with infrared presence detectors, keeping energy consumption to a minimum. It has been developed with fairly produced and recycled materials as well as incorporating lots of greenery in the public areas.

The Hoxton Group will open its first hotel in the city this winter. The Hoxton Vienna will offer nearly 200 rooms in a  centrally located 1950s building close to the Stadtpark. The Hoxton Vienna will also be an ideal venue for meetings, seminars and conferences offering several meeting rooms and a dedicated event space.

For more new hotels, click here.

Exciting new event spaces 

Vienna is a city that is constantly reinventing itself and evolving – with smart city concepts, new districts and meeting locations. Last year brought a number of exciting new additions to the capital’s portfolio including:

  • Ariana: located in Seestadt Aspern, one of the biggest urban development projects in Europe, it offers a total of 1,300 sqm of floor space guaranteed to add the wow factor for up to 830 guests.
  • Weitsicht Cobenzl: situated in the biosphere park Wienerwald in the 19th district with magnificent views over Vienna, the venue has space for up to 2,600 people.
  • Heidi Horten Collection: one of the newest additions to the museums in Vienna, spectacular architecture meets glittering works by Klimt, Picasso and Warhol. The Heidi Horten Collection offers space for events with up to 300 people.

In March 2023, the historic Casino Zögernitz, which is being rebranded as the House of Strauss, opened for events for up to 380 people. The Wien Museum will officially reopen at the end of 2023 and be available for events from 2024.

More ideas on unique, unusual and new venues can be found here.

All venues can be found here.

© WienTourismus/Christian Stemper

Sustainability

Green meetings in a green city 

Vienna is a green city – and not just thanks to its numerous parks and green spaces. Austria has been a leader in sustainability, climate efficiency and resource conservation due to the strong social and environmental standards that have been pioneered in the nation for decades.

The capital is a smart destination and its environmental efforts in the meetings industry are impressive. The Austrian Ecolabel – the nation's most important state-certified environmental seal – is awarded in the Green Meetings & Green Events category. Around 40 venues, from the Austria Center Vienna – the nation's largest congress centre – to institutions steeped in history such as the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna and the National Library, as well as numerous modern conference hotels and service providers in Vienna are currently certified under the Austrian Ecolabel scheme.

The Vienna Convention Bureau offers meeting planners support with licensing and CSR programmes including sustainable site inspections. 

Additional information on Vienna’s serious sustainability initiatives can be found here.

Venues with a social sustainability focus

CAPE 10

CAPE 10 is a central contact point for people affected by poverty and/or ill health, especially women, children and young people, offering support and the opportunity for further education. Income generated by events held in its 420 sqm space, ideal for up to 320 people, helps to support the project. The greening of the building helps its visitors as well as improving the air quality in-house and in the immediate vicinity.

Expedithalle

Built in 1912 and once a hall for distributing bread, this event location offers space for up to 1,500 people in its 1,757 sqm event area. In addition to the main function hall with a stage area, there are three seminar rooms. The Expedithalle supports the increasingly important issues of sustainability, ecological compatibility and social equality and has achieved the ‘Green Location’ Austrian Ecolabel. It also aims to use 100 per cent renewable energy. 

magdas HOTEL

The first social business hotel in Vienna, magdas Hotel offers people with refugee backgrounds the opportunity to work. Built with environmental sustainability in mind, including photovoltaic panels on the roof and geothermal probes in the ground, it upcycles furnishings and efforts are made to repair, restore and reuse every piece of furniture. It offers two conference rooms for a total of 120 people, a restaurant, garden and its own chapel.

MAK - Museum of Applied Arts

The oldest museum building on Vienna's famous Ringstrasse, the Museum of Applied Arts aims to be climate neutral by 2030 and supports green meetings and events as an environmentally certified venue. Alongside the sustainable use of resources in its everyday work and operations, a primary concern of the museum is to provide an easy-to-understand guide to major and sometimes complex eco-social issues. Its largest room offers space for up to 520 people in almost 1,500 sqm. Technically equipped to a high standard, exclusive guided tours are offered as part of events.

Upper Belvedere

This 300-year-old baroque building is one of the world's leading museums with collections from the Middle Ages to the present day. Maria Theresa acquired the site, consisting of two palaces and extensive gardens, and the Archduchess of Austria converted the Upper Belvedere to become the exhibition site of the imperial art collections. Still home to world-class exhibitions, it can also be used as a magnificent venue for events. The Marble Hall is the largest room and offers not only an incomparable view over Vienna, the ‘Canaletto view’, but also space for up to 285 people. The museum pursues its own eco-label slogan: ‘Belvedere: A museum that matters’, assuming responsibility for protecting the environment and has been awarded the Austrian eco-label. It also manages energy resources carefully and is proud of its barrier-free access for visitors.

VinziRast

Since 2003, this independent and open community has been committed to homeless and refugee people. VinziRast's projects include emergency sleeping places, permanent residences, employment and various occupational courses such as German lessons. It is possible to host events in the roof studio, including a roof terrace, for up to 40 people. Catering is provided exclusively by ‘VinziRast-Lokal mittendrin’ and the restaurant can also be used as a meeting space for up to 80 people. The team can present their mission statement and talk about individual projects.

Social programmes

Vienna is a metropolis proud of its diversity and abundance of possibilities. From the variety of locations and services available to event planners, there is a rich choice of original social programmes and incentives. Discover ideas, highlights and insider tips on gastronomy, virtual reality, sports activities and art and culture compiled by the Vienna Convention Bureau.

Learn how to cook an authentic Viennese Schnitzel or bake a traditional Viennese apple strudel at an imperial period cafe. Discover the world-famous wine collection at Palais Coburg, with five wine cellars and more than 50,000 bottles from four centuries. Set in the city’s former fortifications, this is a wine-tasting like no other.

The city’s rich gastronomic offering makes it ideal for culinary tours along with many memorable experiences available outside the conference room.  

There is a special focus on providing and arranging social programmes designed to meet sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) criteria. Vienna is keen to highlight social programmes around ecological and social commitments with new activities including climate workshops, social city tours and community cooking classes.

The coffee and cake is so good at Vollpension that at the weekend, queues form around the block for the famous Germ-Buchteln, a donut/brioche creation from Bohemia with damson filling and vanilla sauce. But this Viennese social enterprise and senior citizens’ café is much more than sweet treats. The founders wanted somewhere that would help tackle the problems of poverty and loneliness in old age. Creating a place where the young can learn from the elderly, pensioners are employed on mini-contracts that supplement their pensions to bake and wait tables. The latest project is a baking course run by grannies that is an excellent group team building event.

© WienTourismus/Christian Stemper

Things to do

Meetings & culture in Vienna 

Congresses and culture, meetings and music: linking business events and world-class culture is easier in Vienna than anywhere else. Vienna lives and breathes culture.

Home to 27 castles and 163 palaces, music halls, opera houses, theatre, art galleries and museums, there is no shortage of places to explore. In the Austrian capital, the innovative spirit found at conferences meets traditional as well as contemporary elements of both art and music. Discover a curated list of culture-inspired social programmes, meetings with a cultural flavour and art hotels here.

The great outdoors

From the Danube to local vineyards, sport and gastronomy, visitors will find a strong focus on health in Vienna. Long a pioneer of organic and local produce, events looking for activities making the most of the great outdoors will find plenty of options in Vienna’s beautiful green spaces and surrounding countryside.

General information here.

Vienna Convention Bureau

An outstanding meeting destination comes with an outstanding team of professionals to assist you. The Vienna Convention Bureau is your first point of contact when it comes to planning congresses, conferences, corporate meetings and incentives. It offers expertise and numerous free services.

For information on Vienna for international meetings, click here.

    For information on Vienna as a life science location, click here.

    Meetings

    Largest congresses in Vienna in 2023

    • European Congress of Radiology, March 2023, 17,000 participants, Austria Center Vienna
    • General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union, April 2023, > 10,000 participants, Austria Center Vienna
    • 42nd Annual Congress of the European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology, May 2023, 6,400 participants, Messe Wien Exhibition & Congress Center
    • Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of the Liver, June 2023, 7,000 participants expected, Messe Wien Exhibition & Congress Center
    • 36th Annual Congress of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine, 6,500 participants expected, Austria Center Vienna
    • 41st Congress of the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons, September 2023, > 12,000 participants expected, Messe Wien Exhibition & Congress Center
    • IAAPA Conference & EXPO Europe - The Leisure Industry’s Premier Event in Europe, September 2023, > 12,000 participants expected, Messe Wien Exhibition & Congress Center

    Additional meetings

    • APRI International Conference - The Arctic Science Summit Week, January 2023, 1,000 participants, Universität Wien  
    • HR Inside Summit 2023, October 2023, > 2,000 participants expected, HOFBURG Vienna
    • Thermec 2023, July 2023, 1,200 participants expected, Technische Universität Wien
    • 11th World Soybean Research Conference, 600 participants expected, Austria Center Vienna

    All meetings: https://meeting.vienna.info/en/meeting-calendar