Nicole Eichinger, CEO of the European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation, explains the uniqueness of the annual meeting: “Compared to many other scientific meetings where the trend goes to smaller plenary meetings and more parallel sessions, our annual congress is still running as a linear programme in one key plenary room, which has to accommodate up to 5,500 participants. With this meeting structure we are rather unique on the market”. Christian Mutschlechner, head of the Vienna Convention Bureau (VCB) at the Vienna Tourist Board, adds: “We are fortunate in Vienna that we are able to offer plenary halls for more than 5,000 participants and by this showing the high level of variety the meeting destination Vienna has to offer.”
In 2013 Vienna hosted the annual ECCO Congress for the first time. It is expected that in 2018 again more than 1,000 scientific abstracts will be submitted to the scientific organising committee. In addition to the plenary session there will be daily digital poster sessions, providing additional platforms for scientific exchange and learning with the focus to improve the care of patients with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) in all its aspects through international guidelines for practice, education, research and collaboration in the area of IBD.