The Board of I.M.Austria nominated its awardee for 2009
Christian Mutschlechner, director of the Vienna Convention Bureau, will receive this year's IMA-Award for his longstanding contributions to the Austrian convention industry.

The IMA-Award 2009 - the annual award for special achievements in the exhibition, event and congress industry in Austria – will be awarded to Christian Mutschlechner. He was nominated unanimously by the Board of I.M.Austria to receive this prestigious award.

Mutschlechner has been working for the advancement of the convention industry in Vienna and Austria for 20 years. As director of the Vienna Convention Bureau (www.vienna.convention.at), and former vice president of the Austrian Convention Bureau, he has contributed highly that Vienna became one of the leading congress cities in the world.
Besides his efforts for the convention industry in Vienna, he served as president of the ICCA - International Congress and Convention Association.
Since June 2009, Christian Mutschlechner has been President of the Austrian Convention Bureau ACB (www.acb.at), the umbrella federation of the Austrian convention industry. An important aim of Mutschlechner in his new role is to unite the entire Austrian convention industry under the roof of the umbrella organization, and to raise the awareness of Austrian congress providers for the national and international convention industry. Another goal is to develop a sustainable statistics of conferences in Austria. In 2009 they succeeded for the first time to such a statistics.
Furthermore, Mutschlechner initiated the Congress Convention 4U - Congress for conferences and meetings (14 to 15/06/2010 at the Festspielhaus Bregenz), a new training and networking platform for the entire convention industry. The aim of the new congress is to further increase the standard, organization and planning of conferences, congresses and events in Austria - and by that to give Austria as a major conference destination even more positive impulses.

The award ceremony will take place on Tuesday, 5 October 2010 at 11 a.m. in the premises of the Vienna Hofburg in the context of the trade fair access 2010.