Forty-one exhibitions and more than 500 meetings were held in the CNCC from November 2009 to June 2010 - 56 of those had more than 1,000 people.

Xu said that the real estate sector accounted for a limited number of meetings, while those involving environmental protection and culture, including the Confucius Institution Conference, made up the lion's share last year.

Because of the government's strong support for the development of regional infrastructures, the World Congress of Cardiology and the World Congress on High Speed Rail were held in June and December.

Wu Shaoyuan, director of conventions at the Chinese International Scientific Convention Center, said that meetings would always be popular because face-to-face communication was important.

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"Unlike the videophone or e-mail, conventions bring people together to communicate in person and brainstorm for good ideas," Wu said.

Wu said organizing conventions is a highly profitable business. For instance, he said, if the registration fee for a meeting is 5,000 yuan and 1,000 people attend, that yields the organizer 5 million yuan in revenue.

Additionally, if a hotel room retails for 700 yuan a night and the organizers pay the wholesale price of 600 yuan, a five-day meeting with 1000 participants brings a 500,000 yuan commission.

Wu said that Beijing's direct income in conventions and exhibitions totaled more than 13 billion yuan at the end of November, and Shanghai had received about 17 billion yuan in that period.

"But high profits come along with high risks, and the shortage of investment funding is the main challenge," Wu added.

Wu said that bidding for an international convention costs several hundred thousand yuan, and many convention centers do not have the financial power. But he spoke highly of Chengdu, the provincial capital of Southwest China's Sichuan province, which has developed a successful process for bidding on conventions and has gained an annual revenue of 3 billion yuan.

"They ask a certain hotel to pay the bid fund first. If it is successful, they arrange for participants to stay in the hotel and repay them," Wu said.

Though the venues are increasing, due to the demand for conferences, companies and institutions are having ever-greater difficulty in finding an ideal location for large gatherings.

"It is very hard for us to find a hotel with a conference hall and guest rooms that can accommodate 500 people at a time," said Christina Wang, a purchasing manager with a leading international pharmaceutical company's office in Beijing.

The company has spent more than 5 million yuan on its annual gala at a suburban hotspring resort for four days because it was the only place they could book for such a large audience, with all of their sales representatives.

"It is absolutely crucial for a company that depends on sales to have a team-building experience, a sharing and rewarding moment," Wang said. "But arranging it can be a headache."

Conference experts said public relations companies and tourism agencies in China have earned big money in planning, organizing and running conferences for companies and institutions. The top 10 conference facilitators in China earned 3.5 to 4 billion yuan in 2010, said Wang of the Conference Magazine.