In March 2026, ICCA (International Congress and Convention Association) announced that it is building a global tool to measure what association conferences contribute beyond tourism figures. Its partners include the convention bureaus of Barcelona, Copenhagen, Flanders, Sydney and Tokyo, and the tool is expected to be validated by mid-2028 (TTG MICE, March 2026). Bureaus and associations already use several frameworks, including those discussed below. When planning a project, agree which objectives and measures you will use and how they relate to the emerging international work.
Conference legacy is what a congress leaves behind after the delegates have gone home: knowledge that changes practice, new collaborations, talent that stays, a stronger local sector, sometimes a change in policy. It is the non-monetary counterpart to the economic impact a destination calculates from delegate spending.
This guide shows how convention bureaus and associations plan a legacy project and how to measure it in stages. Planning objectives and evaluation before the congress makes later results easier to assess. Allow for follow-up over months or years, rather than relying only on a closing-day survey.
What conference legacy means, and what it does not
The missing standard starts with the definition. Copenhagen Legacy Lab, the legacy unit of the city’s convention bureau, uses a strict one: it speaks of legacy when the achieved impact of a congress meets the objectives of the legacy project set up for it. Without an objective, there is nothing to compare the result against.
The Danish study Powering Meeting Legacies (Gaining Edge with MeetDenmark, October 2023) adds a second distinction. A meeting legacy is an outcome directly attributable to the meeting. Meeting influence is a contribution to results that the meeting cannot claim as its only cause. A new national treatment guideline usually belongs in the second group. Saying so openly makes the rest of your report more credible.
Legacy also sits next to three neighbouring ideas, and mixing them up confuses funders:
- Economic impact: the new money a congress brings into a city through spending by delegates, organisers and exhibitors, calculated with multipliers. Legacy covers what that figure cannot express.
- Return on investment: whether the event paid off for a single party, such as an exhibitor or the organiser. Our ROI framework for tourism trade shows covers that business case.
- Sustainability management: how you limit the negative effects of an event. ISO 20121 lists legacy among the issues a management system has to consider, but the certificate does not prove that a legacy was achieved.
Before approving a project, the association and bureau should agree who is intended to benefit, what should change and when they will review progress.
Why bureaus and associations now plan for legacy
The president’s members have good reason to care, because delegates report effects that a spending survey never captures. Business Events Sydney has commissioned research on these effects from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) since 2011. The 2019 report surveyed 1,404 delegates of eleven international conferences held in Sydney in 2017 and 2018 (Edwards, Foley and Hergesell, UTS, 2019).
Delegate survey, Sydney
What delegates say a conference left behind
The last figure matters most for measurement. More than half of the effect had not yet happened when delegates answered. A closing-day survey therefore cannot capture all the effects delegates expect.
Destinations have drawn their own conclusions. Barcelona, which hosts more than 500 congresses a year, set up a dedicated legacy team and published a Legacy Handbook for associations in 2025 (Boardroom, March 2025). BestCities Global Alliance and ICCA have awarded the Incredible Impacts grants to association meetings with lasting community legacies since 2017, with a main grant of 20,000 US dollars and a seed grant of 5,000 (Kongres Magazine, June 2025). Associations, in turn, increasingly choose host cities for their research strength and industry depth in the congress field, a shift we describe in our guide to what makes a MICE destination (MICE stands for meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions).
For the association, legacy is a mission argument. A congress that moves through a city every few years can look like a travel programme to members. One that leaves behind a research fund, a training course or a new cohort of young researchers looks like the association doing its job.
If a legacy project is included in the bid, specify how its delivery and results will be reviewed.
Five areas where a congress can leave something behind
Choose a small number of objectives that the association and local partners can support. The UTS research and the published bureau programmes point to five areas. Pick one or two per congress, not all five.
- Knowledge and practice: new techniques, guidelines or ideas that delegates and local professionals take into their daily work, for example through a training day for local practitioners next to the scientific programme.
- Collaboration: joint research projects, business partnerships and contacts between visiting experts and local institutes, clinics or companies.
- Talent: students, young researchers and professionals who join the field, the association or the host city. How associations welcome these newcomers, we explain in our guide to first-time attendee programmes.
- Sector profile: a stronger international position for the local industry or research cluster. In the UTS survey, 85 per cent agreed the conferences raised Sydney’s international profile.
- Community and policy: effects outside the delegate group, such as patient education, public awareness or expert input into regulation.
A good legacy project makes these areas tangible. At the ESPGHAN congress of paediatric gastroenterologists in Copenhagen, the steering group combined three of them. A Family Education Day brought patient families together with international experts, a talent workshop addressed young researchers, and a research fund of three million Danish kroner was set up (Gaining Edge with MeetDenmark, 2023; Skift Meetings, November 2023).
Each activity identifies a group intended to benefit. That gives the evaluation a clearer focus than a broad aim such as “raise awareness”.
How to plan a legacy project, starting 18 months ahead
Agreeing responsibilities and securing partners takes time, so start before the congress team’s delivery work becomes intensive. The Danish study of nine congresses held between 2019 and 2022 found that the most successful interventions started 12 to 15 months before the event. It recommends starting 18 to 20 months ahead, and no later than 12 months. Its summary is blunt: too late is too little.
For a convention bureau, that means the legacy conversation belongs in the bid phase or right after the award. In the final year, the organising committee is busy with the programme, the venue and the registration, and there is no room left for a side project.
Legacy planning
Six steps from congress award to legacy report
- 18 to 20 months Select the congress A committed association whose field matches the city's research or industry strengths.
- 18 months Form a steering group Association, local host and bureau first, then partners and the people the legacy is meant for.
- 15 months Set one objective One change in one named group of people, written down and signed off by the association.
- 12 months Design the evaluation Indicators, a baseline and follow-up dates, agreed before any activity is planned.
- Congress Embed the activities Inside the programme, not on the last afternoon when delegates are leaving.
- 6 to 24 months after Report in stages Outputs on site, outcomes after six to twelve months, impact after a year or more.
The effort is smaller than many expect. The Danish study puts the practical average at about twelve days of a legacy manager’s time over 18 months per event. The harder part is that those days are spread across the bureau, the local host and the association at the same time.
The local host is often the same expert who brought the congress to the city. If your bureau runs a congress ambassador programme, the ambassador is the natural chair of the steering group. She knows the association’s priorities and the local institutions that could carry the legacy.
Choose a programme slot that the intended audience can attend. A workshop on the final afternoon may lose participants to departing flights; an earlier session needs to avoid important parallel content.
This is also the moment for the association president to sign off the full scope, including who pays and who reports. Projects without that signature tend to dissolve when the congress team changes.
How to measure legacy: outputs, outcomes and impact
The evaluation design from step four decides what you can report later. Copenhagen Legacy Lab separates four stages, each with its own timing. The structure follows the logic model that public funders know from other programmes, which makes the report easier to read for a city council.
| Stage | When | What it shows | Example indicators |
|---|---|---|---|
| Outputs | During and right after the congress | Immediate results of the activities | Participants at a family day, meetings between delegates and local institutes, new contacts |
| Outcomes | Six to twelve months later | Changes in behaviour or practice | Joint project applications, changed routines, applications to local study programmes |
| Impact | After one year | Wider effects on the sector or society | New research funding, jobs, input into guidelines or policy |
| Potential legacy | More than one year later | Whether the objective was met | Assessment against the objective set in the planning phase |
Source: Copenhagen Legacy Lab framework, Wonderful Copenhagen; example indicators are our own.
Most reports stop at the first row, because outputs are easy to count on site. The UTS figure explains why that is not enough: for most delegates with new insights, the effect on their work arrives later, in the second and third rows. Five rules keep the later rows credible:
- Record a baseline: before the congress, note where the target group stands. It gives later findings a point of comparison.
- Survey again later: a short follow-up at six and twelve months catches the effects delegates expect to come. The UTS researchers recommend longer timeframes and measuring activities before and after the congress.
- Separate legacy from influence: claim what the congress caused, and describe what it contributed to. Funders accept the difference if you name it.
- Mix numbers and stories: the ESPGHAN family day was assessed through feedback from patients and presenters. When the group is small, a documented case is evidence too.
- Agree who holds the data: the association owns the delegate contacts, the bureau owns the local partners. Settle before the congress who sends the follow-up survey.
Shared frameworks are on their way. Business Events Sydney maps its outcomes to the eight community capitals of the #MEET4IMPACT framework, from human and social to intellectual and political capital (BESydney Social Impact Strategy, 2024). ICCA’s tool is due in 2028. Until then, write your indicators so that they can be translated later: one objective, a named target group, fixed dates.
Put the follow-up dates, data owners and reporting responsibilities in the project plan.
Where event data supports the legacy report
That calendar starts at the congress itself. Most outputs in the first row come from the event: who registered, which local partners took part, who met whom. When registration, programme and meetings sit in separate tools, the first page of the legacy report starts with spreadsheets, and the contacts for the follow-up survey are hard to find a year later.
Plan the follow-up contact arrangements during registration, including any consent needed for surveys six and twelve months later. Explain the purpose and timing before collecting the data.
Converve’s rule-based meeting matrix schedules one-to-one meetings between congress delegates and local institutes, companies or start-ups, based on criteria the bureau and the association set. Registration profiles and every scheduled meeting sit in one dataset, so the output stage of your legacy report starts with real figures on who met whom. See how destinations use it on our tourism solution page, and how associations run their congresses on the association solution page.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is conference legacy?
Conference legacy is the lasting effect a congress has on its host city, its field and its association after the event: new knowledge in practice, collaborations, talent, a stronger local sector or input into policy. Copenhagen Legacy Lab speaks of legacy when the achieved impact meets the objectives set for a legacy project.
What is the difference between conference legacy and economic impact?
Economic impact measures the new money a congress brings into a city through spending by delegates, organisers and exhibitors. Legacy covers the effects that money cannot express, such as research collaborations, skills or community benefits. Both belong in a destination’s report, but they need different methods.
How do you measure the legacy of a conference?
Set one objective and a baseline before the congress, then measure in stages: outputs during the event, outcomes after six to twelve months and impact after a year or more (Copenhagen Legacy Lab framework). Follow-up surveys matter, because 58 per cent of delegates with new insights said the impact was still to come (UTS, 2019).
When should legacy planning start?
Gaining Edge with MeetDenmark recommends starting 18 to 20 months before the congress, and no later than 12 months. In its study of nine congresses, the most successful interventions started 12 to 15 months ahead (2023). Later starts compete with routine congress planning and rarely get the resources they need.
Who is responsible for a congress legacy?
A steering group of the association, the local host and the convention bureau. The association signs off the objective and scope, the local host connects the local institutions, and the bureau coordinates and often supports the evaluation. Beneficiaries, such as patient groups or universities, should join early.
What are examples of conference legacies?
Examples include a family education day connecting patients with international experts, a research fund set up during the congress, a talent workshop for young researchers, training for local professionals and joint projects between visiting experts and local institutes. The ESPGHAN congress in Copenhagen combined several of these.
Agree the objectives and follow-up before the congress
Conference legacy has moved from the closing speech into the bid. Bureaus build legacy teams, associations award grants for it, and ICCA is building a global measurement tool. What has not changed is the logic behind it. Clear objectives, named partners and scheduled follow-up help distinguish intended results from wider effects the congress may have supported.
For the association, that means agreeing a manageable set of objectives, the intended beneficiaries and an evaluation schedule early in the planning process. For the bureau, it means bringing the legacy conversation into the bid, not into the final report. If structured meetings between delegates and your local research and business community belong in that plan, talk to Converve about your next congress.
