Bologna Welcomes Events: discover the incentives for your event in Bologna

The Municipality of Bologna has created a fund dedicated to the congress sector: Bologna Welcomes Events

It is an incentive plan, Bologna Welcomes Events, aimed at stimulating the organization of major events in the metropolitan city of Bologna, involving highly qualified local suppliers.

The fund will be up to € 500,000 per year, to support new requests for live events with registered participants known to the organizer and which bring added value to Bologna as knowledge, innovation and business destination.

What services does the Bologna Convention Bureau offer
Bologna Convention Bureau operates with the full support of the Municipality of Bologna and offers free of charge:

Bologna Welcomes Events – Discover the incentives for your event in Bologna

Who is it for?

• PCOs and event organization agencies
• Associations and companies

that will choose Bologna as destination for the next edition of their event

What kind of events?

• Congresses
• Conferences
• Meetings
• Corporate / Association / Business meetings

Requirements

• Valid for new requests for future events,years 2023-26
• Events involving at least 400 attendees and a minimum of 2 consecutive overnight stays in the metropolitan area of Bologna
• Overnight stays must be managed by BW Incoming Travel Agency

How it works?

For international events there is a grant of € 10 per participant for events from 400 to 999 participants. The value of the grant rises to € 15 per participant, if the event involves between 1000 and 1999 participants. For events involving more than 2000 participants, the city offers a € 20 grant per participant.

For national events from 400 to 999 participants, the value of the grant is € 7, which rises to € 10 for events with up to 1999 participants. For events involving over 2000 people, the grant has a value of € 14 per participant.

The maximum amount that can be agreed for a single event is € 50,000.

International events: the majority of the participants are from abroad

The grants  are supplied by the Bologna Convention Bureau, valid for new requests and for partial coverage of costs for venues for events, gala dinners or social events, auxiliary services such as catering services, audio-video and staff services, set-up services, transport, organizational secretariat.

The grant will be allocated at the end of the event, upon presentation of final invoices indicating the number of event’s participants. The grant will be disbursed on a first-come-first-served basis until funds are exhausted.

Click here to download the regulations for the Bologna Welcomes Events incentive scheme.

The application for the grant should be submitted to the Bologna Convention Bureau through attached documents. The documents are to be sent on association/agency/company headed paper to bolognawelcome@legalmail.it and for reference to bcb@bolognawelcome.it together with the identity document of the legal representative.

Please note that the documents must be signed in the Italian language copy. See the italian attachments here.