Facts and Figures
Location
• 80 minutes from London
• 38 minutes from Brussels
• 60 minutes from Paris
• 50 minutes from Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport
• 2 hours and 40 minutes from Cologne and Amsterdam (end 2009)
• 70 destinations from the Lille-Lesquin airport, located 15 minutes from the city center
| Destination |
Number of trains daily, roundtrip |
Trip length |
| Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport |
25 |
50 min |
| Bruxelles |
15 |
38 min |
| Londres |
10 (Eurostar) |
80 min |
| Lyon |
10 |
2h50 |
| Marseille |
7 |
4h30 |
| Paris |
22 |
60 min |
And also: Bordeaux, Montpellier, Strasbourg, Nantes, and Rennes, among others.
Population
• 220,000 in Lille (10th largest city in France)
• 1.2 million in the Greater Lille Metropolitan area (85 administrative districts, 4th largest metropolitan area after Paris, Lyon, and Marseille)
• 1.9 million in the Franco-Belgian Eurometropole
• Lille is capital of the Nord-Pas de Calais region (population 4 million)
• 36 % of Greater Lille’s population is under 25 years old
• 100,000 students and 3,000 teaching researchers: Greater Lille is the 3rd largest metropolitan area for higher education, behind Paris and Nantes, and tied with Toulouse)
Economy
• 100 million consumers in a 300 km radius
• Voted favorite French city for European entrepreneurs; 11th ranked city in Europe (ECER-Banque Populaire ranking 2009 – source: Voix Eco 02/04/09)
• European leader for mail-order businesses (La Redoute, Les 3 Suisses, La Blanche Porte) and mass retail (Auchan, Camaïeu, Castorama, Décathlon, Leroy-Merlin, Norauto, Pimkie, etc.)
• Top textile and technical textile center in France
• Largest University Hospital center in Europe, with 13,200 medical professionals
• 2nd largest concentration of international business headquarters in France
• 2nd largest French city for insurance (including 6 head offices, such as La Mondiale and Lloyd Continental)
• 3rd largest French river port
• 3rd largest French city for banking, the agro-food industry (Heineken, Bonduelle, etc.) and mechanical and electric industries (Dassault)
• 3rd largest office space market in France
Tourism
• Around 425,000 tourists stopped at the Lille Tourist Office in 2008, for an estimated total of 850,000 annual visitors
• 53.7 % are foreign visitors, representing 60 nationalities and 5 continents
• Roughly 1 in 5 tourist is British
• The Palais des Beaux Arts museum has the 2nd largest collection in France, after the Louvre.
• 9 million travelers passed through Lille’s two train stations: Lille-Flandres and Lille-Europe (2008)
• 1 million travelers counted at the Lille-Lesquin airport (2008)
• Voted European capital of culture (2004); Lille 3000 cultural event takes place every 2 years
• 20 museums
Meeting Industry
• 115 hotels; 7,000 rooms
• 4,500 rooms within walking distance of the convention center (Lille Grand Palais)
• 113 meeting and reception sites
• 484 venues
• Lille Grand Palais: 300 events and 1 million visitors annually (trade shows, conventions, concerts and shows, etc.)
• A Convention Bureau accredited DMAP by the Destination Marketing Association International (DMAI) from 2008-2012