FAQ - Frequently asked questions

Event locations are special event venues that were originally built for other purposes but can now be hired to hold an event. Event locations in Cologne include castles and churches as well as theatre buildings; ships; sport, culture and leisure centres; museums and factory halls.

The costs for the hire of an event location depend on the desired size of the venue, the number of participants, the seating and other factors such as additional services that have been booked. Many event locations quote a basic flat fee on their homepage. This fee can vary according to special wishes for changes.

From 1 July 2024, visitors to the city who stay overnight in Cologne's accommodation establishments will pay accommodation tax, regardless of whether or not the overnight stay is required for work-related reasons. Overnight stays that are mandatory for work purposes that begin on or after 1 July 2024 will no longer be exempt from taxation.

Conference hotels are hotels that specialize in congresses, conventions and conferences. They have sufficient room capacity to hold congresses etc. in their own hotel and to accommodate the participants in their own hotel at the same time.

Cologne has a wide choice of conference hotels suitable for every occasion: You can choose from 56 suitable hotels with three, four and five-star classifications for your congress in the cathedral city.

Although the two expressions are often used synonymously, they differ considerably. Whereas a convention is a multi-day specialist event, a conference is generally a one-day event of people from a certain interest group, company, or sector, who come together to discuss a specific topic area. Moreover, a conference generally has fewer participants than a convention.

Koelnmesse generally organizes and supports up to 2,000 conferences per year that are held in the congress centres and at other venues during trade fairs and at other times.

An event centre is a building or a venue in which events of different kinds take place. Event centres include convention centres, sport and multipurpose halls, arenas and community centres that have been specially built for holding events and do not offer overnight accommodation.

Event service providers take on the planning of an event according to the wishes of the client. Whether it’s furniture, decoration, technical equipment or an evening programme, the event services provider takes over the preparation and coordination along with the responsibility for the smooth running of the event.

Incentives are a Human Resources management technique for boosting employee motivation and loyalty. Incentives can be aimed at individual employees or at the entire workforce.

Incentives serve to increase employee motivation and can take the form of e.g. material rewards, bonus programmes and company cars. Short trips, events or teambuilding activities are a widespread form of incentives within companies.

Creativity in the design of your incentives knows no bounds. Depending on the company and its employees, you can decide freely which offer is appropriate. Cologne offers a wide range of diverse activities in addition to Carnival. The Cologne Convention Bureau will support you in your search for supporting programmes.

Cologne has a large selection of venues that are suitable for conventions available. The Cologne Convention Bureau will help you in the process of finding the appropriate venue for your convention. You will find an overview with the information concerning venues that is most important for convention planning, such as room size, capacity, distance from the city centre, and photo material, on locations.cologne.

In Cologne, more than 80 trade fairs take place just at Koelnmesse every year. Koelnmesse is the venue for many important trade fairs such as photokina, gamescom, Art Cologne, DMEXCO, FIBO and Anuga.

Koelnmesse offers space for around 80 exhibitions a year with a total of approx. 3 million visitors and more than 55,000 exhibitors. A wide range of topic areas addressing interested parties from Germany and abroad and covering a wide range of topic areas such as fitness/sport at Fibo, food at Anuga and ironmongery at EISENWARENMESSE — International Hardware Fair.

Koelnmesse’s exhibition centre is the third-largest in Germany and among the top ten worldwide. Together with the outdoor area, the 11 trade fair halls occupy a space of 40,000 m². A good overview of the venue can be found in the corresponding CCB entry for event venues in Cologne.

Cologne is a centre of science that has 23 institutions of higher learning, each of which has its own area of research expertise. They range from the TH Köln (university of applied sciences) and its GameLab to the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln (music and dance academy) and the Cologne Business School. Each research centre is an important driving force of innovation in its specific area.

Cologne is the centre of science for the Rhineland and its multifaceted landscape of universities and research institutes give it a thematically broad range of research fields. The research expertise in the city extends from aerospace research to the life sciences, and much more besides.

Cologne has the third-largest number of university students in Germany. It has a total of 106,000 university students, which puts it right behind Berlin and Munich. Prospective students are attracted to the Rhineland especially by special fields such as gaming, business, and aerospace research. 

Cologne is considered a trading city and covers many of Germany’s most important business sectors. The city is characterized by its strong diversification, covering areas such as retailing, with major companies such as the REWE Group; wholesaling with Handelshof, for example; the automotive sector with Ford, whose plant and European headquarters are located in Cologne, and the chemicals and pharmaceuticals industry.

Cologne is a hot spot of the German startup scene: The city is a pioneer in this regard, boasting a total of 12 business incubators and more than 30 coworking spaces. To learn more about the startup scene in Cologne, check out the interview with Dr. Janssen from Wirtschaftsförderung Köln (Cologne office for the promotion of economic development).

Cologne has an unparalleled catchment area. You can reach a total of 17 million people in a 100-km radius around the city. This is more than any other metropolis in continental Europe. As a result, Cologne is an optimal location for new startups as well as for traditional companies.

Cologne is one of Germany’s media cities and it hosts four major TV broadcasters. The primary one is of course WDR, which is continental Europe’s largest broadcasting organization under public law. In addition to several small niche broadcasters, the RTL media group, with its broadcasters Super RTL, n-tv, RTL, VOX, and many more, is also based in Cologne.

This lively city on the Rhine offers a wealth of cultural activities and numerous major events. Attractions such as Cologne Cathedral, which is recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the city's 12 Romanesque churches create an unforgettable impression on visitors. What’s more, the large number of museums and galleries, presenting top-class art of all styles and from all époques, contribute to Cologne’s unique cultural offerings.

Cologne has innumerable attractions for every taste. Most notably there is Cologne Cathedral, of course, which is the most-visited tourist attraction in Germany. Apart from that, art lovers will be spoiled by Cologne’s many galleries and museums. In addition, many of Cologne’s “veedel” offer a unique charm of their own for visitors.

Cologne Cathedral’s more than 157-metre tall towers make it the tallest cathedral in Germany and the third-tallest in the world. Moreover, the structure, which is on UNESCO’s Welt Heritage list, is over 765 years old and is regarded as the most-visited tourist attraction in Germany.nds.

One of the typical foods in Cologne is certainly “Blootwoosch" (black pudding), which is served as part of the "Himmel un Äd" (heaven and earth) dish, along with onions, mashed potatoes, and apple sauce, or as "kölsche Kaviar" (Cologne caviar), along with a rye roll. Another unique dish is "Halve Hahn" (half a chicken) If you order it, you won’t get half of a fried chicken, as you might expect, but instead a thick slab of gouda cheese, half of a rye roll, as well as butter and strong mustard.

Cologne is a feeling — this slogan of the city stands for everything that characterizes Cologne. Cologne leaves an impression — not through imposing buildings or luxury and glamour but through the city’s cheerful and positive attitude to life! It’s the people, the many faces and anecdotes and the captivating character of the city that make clear to you Cologne’s attitude to life.

Veedel is the word for neighbourhood or quarter in the Cologne dialect. Cologne has a total of nine city districts. These, in turn, are divided into 86 veedel. Each veedel has its own distinctive charm. You should visit some of them as part of a supporting programme for your event, for example.

Cologne is a mecca for gourmets. The city has a total of 3,000 restaurants — there is something for every taste, ranging from traditional breweries to top restaurants boasting Michelin stars.

No other German city finances as many museums out of its own funds as Cologne. The nine municipal museums, including the Kölnisches Stadtmuseum (Cologne City Museum), the Museum of Applied Arts, the Museum Ludwig and the exhibition in the Römisch-Germanisches Museum (Romano-Germanic Museum), attract large numbers of visitors every year.

According to the City of Cologne’s Statistical Yearbook 2019, the city is home to 164 Catholic churches, including 25 Romanesque ones. There are also 76 Protestant churches.

Planning an event takes place in a number of steps, starting with determining the objectives of the event and continuing through to the event’s follow-up phase. Each step must be carefully thought through and prepared for. The Cologne Convention Bureau supports planners in this process with detailed checklists on event planning.

The event planning process can be divided into a total of six steps: determining the objectives of the event, working out a concept, making the right decision, organizing the event itself and the follow-up phase. The Cologne Convention Bureau supports event planning with checklists for every step.

On the one hand, you can find support for event planning by commissioning an event agency that professionally accompanies the process of organization. On the other hand, if you wish to plan the event without an agency, convention bureaus will provide you with support. The Cologne Convention Bureau provides support in the form of checklists for event planning and also puts you in contact with event agencies in Cologne.

You need to keep several things in mind for a successful event — whether it is an evening event or a congress. They include the choice of venue, the appropriate content, the catering, the technology, and the furnishings. To help you, the Cologne Convention Bureau has created check lists for planning events. The lists enable you to easily plan your event step by step.

A bid book is a kind of application portfolio. In many cases it’s a key element of a city’s, scientific institution’s or association’s bid for a convention. The Cologne Convention Bureau (CCB) will be happy to provide its expertise and help you create a bid book for your bid for a convention in Cologne. The CCB will also help you present the city of Cologne, with an emphasis on its expertise in diverse specialist areas and the options for organizing and implementing your convention, with a uniform look and feel. The services of the CCB are free of charge, and they include support for all of your planning steps right up to and including the day of the event.

The letter of intent is a declaration by a national association or an association member that the author is bidding to host a convention at a certain destination as the “local chair.” In many cases, the writer of the letter of intent forms the introduction of the bid book. The letter of recommendation is an official promise to support this association’s plan. This letter of recommendation can be issued by companies and institutions relevant to the sector or by the Cologne Convention Bureau. Through this letter of recommendation the sender assures the “local chair” that the sender will provide individualized support for the organization and implementation of the association event or convention at the location.

Cologne offers many attractive venues for your association convention or association event. In addition to 54 conference hotels, the Maritim Hotel is suitable as one of our city’s largest conference locations and offers direct views of the Rhine. Cologne also offers a modern convention centre that will be expanded in the years ahead to form the Confex® hybrid venue, as well as the Gürzenich banqueting hall, which is our city’s oldest meeting facility, and other attractive options with a historical flair. The Cologne Convention Bureau will be happy to support you in your effective search for a suitable venue for your association event.