Bratislava’s tagline is – “Surprisingly Close and Exceptionally Smart”

# tags: Destinations , Bratislava

Event Point International’s Ramy James Salameh explains why…

Bratislava is a modern European metropolis and the only capital in the world located on the border of three states – Slovakia, Austria and Hungary. Besides its strategic location on the River Danube, the Slovakian capital is part of the European Union and has the Euro as the official currency. Cosy city with a stunning downtown full of historic buildings and cultural heritage, Bratislava provides an amazing atmosphere where business travelers can enjoy life together with locals. Destination marketing baseline for Bratislava was named: ‘Surprisingly Close – Exceptionally Smart’. 

Accessibility, innovation, execution 

Surveys in the meetings industry constantly rank accessibility among the top criteria for destination selection, and Bratislava is surprisingly close in that regard. You can get to the Slovakian capital in 40 minutes from Vienna airport, or in 20 minutes from Bratislava airport to the city centre. While there you’ll find yourself in a super walkable and compact city, where the beauty of the old town and modern urbanity sit side by side.

Bratislava is also an exceptionally smart city with a pulsating start-up eco-system and a stellar global reputation as an innovation hub. The sheer size of its market and a population of five million people make Slovakia a perfect breeding ground for new ideas and new-product testing. This is also why Slovaks have one of the fastest internet connections in Europe. Meeting professionals know the importance of exceptional execution. Strategies and plans are always essential but without great execution, they become useless. Without precision, attention to detail and total focus, great strategies and brilliant plans go nowhere. 

The patchwork of ochre-coloured roof-tops map-out the compact old town, with its plethora of historic buildings some of which support meetings venues, notably the Guggenheim-style gallery Nedbalka and the 19th Century neo-renaissance national theatre; Zaha Hadid’s architectural footprint is represented by the trio of ‘Sky Park’ buildings, an area southeast of the city centre, now clustered with modern high-rises of glass and steel representing growing prosperity.

This prosperity can be, in large part, linked to the capital’s emergence as a start-up and innovation hub, as well as opening its doors to global automotive leaders such as Peugeot Citroen, KIA and Jaguar Land Rover, who have all opted to locate Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM’s) plants around Bratislava; for them precision, attention to detail and focus are non-negotiable. This also proves that exceptional execution is part of the DNA of Bratislava. Slovakia is the country with the highest per capita production in the automotive industry worldwide. The nickname ‘Europe’s Detroit’ now testament to the city’s growing significance in the sector and great tonic for local DMC’s and PCO’s.

Local DMC’s such as tour4u.sk and enjoyslovakia.com are upbeat about the cities MICE future; tour4u.sk can create bespoke itineraries as they manage their own unique tour buses and even speedboats. Zipping along the Danube in speedboats was a wonderful way to retreat from the centre of Bratislava and into nature, but was not the only exhilarating activity of the day, as we docked close to Dovokavoda.sk White Water Centre, pitting our collective team wits across 350m of obstacles, drops, waves and fast flowing water; this same artificial channel helped train Slovakian Olympic medallists.

This was just one of several incentive activities' visitors are invited to try within the greater Bratislava region. Incentives are very much based on the landscape; Bratislava urban area, the Danube River, Small Carpathian hills with forests and wine region. All provide diversity, including treasure hunts around the cobbled streets of the old town, to speed boats, countryside biking to Wine Sampling in historic vaulted cellars or state-of-art modern wineries with the option of winemaker workshops.

Value for money?

In Bratislava, you can find a wide range of venues and about 3,200 hotel rooms in the 4- and 5-star range, most of them enchanted by the atmosphere in the inner-city where the traffic is banned. If you compare Bratislava prices with the largest and best-known cities in the region, you will find that they are lower, even though the quality is at the same level. Regarding all the above aspects plus safety in the city, Bratislava is a great destination for small and medium sized international events. Bratislava ranks in the top 10 of international meeting destinations within New Europe region, which can host a maximum of 2,000 congress participants (Source: “Meetings Star Awards”). 

For more information go to: https://www.visitbratislava.com/convention/event-planning