In 2009, more than 6.4 million business travelers spent roughly $25 billion on trips (13 percent of those trips for meetings) outside North America, according to the U.S. Office of Travel and Tourism Industries. That represented a decline of one million travelers compared to 2008. But in the first four months of 2010, international business travel is finally showing positive growth again—up about 1.5 percent. Read where those international meetings are likely to be held.

The three meeting cities are founding members of the Future Convention Cities Initiative, a partnership whose goal is to share best practices for attracting leading business events to each of the destinations. The Seoul Tourism Organization in Seoul, South Korea; Visit London; and Business Events Sydney in Sydney, Australia, launched the initiative in July in collaboration with research partner Fast Future Research, which will serve as coordinator of the Future Convention Cities Initiative. Here’s what representatives of each city had to say about the project.

The BestCities Global Alliance—a partnership of worldwide destination marketing and sales organizations including those of Cape Town, South Africa; Copenhagen; Dubai, U.A.E.; Edinburgh, Scotland; Melbourne, Australia; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Singapore; and Vancouver, British Columbia—is now 10 years old. Continuing its mission of setting and following consistent service standards among the worldwide destinations, the alliance named a new chairwoman and announced goals.

If you missed our recent webinar on international meeting planning, you can still listen in to the discussion from our webinar archives. Click on “International Meeting Planning: The Basics and Beyond” to launch the presentation, in which Koleen Roach, Securian; Leigh Wintz, CAE, Soroptimist International; and Eli Gorin, CMP, ABTS Convention Services shared their advice and experiences with international incentive programs and conventions. Bon voyage!