Freshen up your business. An Incentive in Jūrmala will turn colleagues into teammates.

A very nice place in Latvia to plan a unique MICE program is Jūrmala – perfectly attributed as “magnetic”! The second largest city in Latvia (after Riga) has around 57.000 inhabitants and offers an enviable quality of life for its inhabitants. Located on a stretch of 24 km along the seaside and hidden away in the pine forests, with charming heritage wooden villas and a pleasant micro climate, it is a place to wake the spirits. Stress effects are healed in a light breeze and it allows both focus and just enough entertainment and culture to keep any group aligned with the purpose of the meeting.

Access is most important and here it is a strong asset — Jūrmala is located at about the same distance from the airport as Riga, just in the opposite direction: from the airport only around 15 minutes to either of the cities. Jūrmala easily stands on its own for hosting a wide choice of events, but it also offers all it needs to balance a busy capital’s meeting or congress. Being an official Resort— and Health City, it even adds a remarkable value to any business event that has a health-conscious subject or audience.

In Jūrmala you can breathe freely, it clears the head — a place with an unbelievable 24 km white sand beach, located and hidden away in pine forests and at the river Lielupe, clean and green with several blue flag beaches, electric busses, smart city lights, just to name a few assets.

Together with the good infrastructure for events of all kinds it makes a new and very interesting spot for sustainable and healthy MICE events and can help you to tweak your planned event into a new direction with not much extra effort. Why not combine well-being, health, SPAS and medical programs with a high-level meeting to boost both brain and body of your participants? Or allow an extension with a compact health check and relaxation program as an extra incentive to your group members.

Also, for active sport-addicted delegates, there is hardly any better place — in Jūrmala many options to follow nature trails, go birdwatching, cycle (even on the sand of the flat and wide beach!), water activities like paddle boarding, wakeboarding, yachting and of course yoga, Nordic walking and all kind of outdoor sports activities can create unforgettable team building experiences. You look for a place for a closed meeting to tackle some difficult decisions? Then Jūrmala is it — no need to travel hours to remote places to find peace and refreshment — here the focus is unblurred and sharp.

Groups do not live on fresh air and outdoor experiences alone — food and catering experiences are as elementary for any successful event program!

Jūrmala’s restaurants and eateries reflect traditional tastes as well as contemporary culinary fashions and the local residents’ daily rituals. The city’s 78 diverse restaurants – including bistros, pizzerias, cafés, confectionaries etc. – can be found right in the centre of the city, along Jomas street and in the surroundings, where a variety of live music often accompanies diners well into night during summer. For MICE groups 41 of the restaurants are recommended by the city experts.

A gastronomic experience in Jūrmala can consist of a wonderful meal amongst the dunes or on the banks of the river, with a grand view of nature and yachts calmly sliding by or, in the evening, Europe’s most beautiful sunset reflected on your plate.

Many of Jūrmala’s restaurants feature local cuisine — both traditional and contemporary interpretations thereof. If you yearn for something a bit more exotic, it’s just as easy to find a meal inspired by the Caucasus or the Orient… or savour a bit of Old Europe with Italian and French cooking at the core. Jūrmala takes pride in being home to some of Latvia’s best restaurants..

Please check the dining website of Jūrmala and you will find images and descriptions of the restaurants – more “magnets” to urge you to select Jūrmala!

Here is Jūrmala’s hospitality infrastructure in a nutshell:

33 hotels (1774 rooms, 3500 beds)

15 hotels with conference halls (1339 rooms, 59 conference rooms, max capacity in one room 800 people)

14 conference venues (up to 500 people in one venue)

2 open-air venues (up to 2400 people)

78 eating facilities

41 restaurants

4 beach cafes

More than 50 original activities for groups

The professional business environment of Jūrmala helps to exchange knowledge with local specialists and to create fresh programs for delegates.

1) The LIAA Jūrmala Business Incubator is one of 15 regional incubators in the country which are administered by the Investment and Development Agency of Latvia. Entrepreneurs from the incubation programs work here regularly, yet the coworking is open to anyone for occasional visits. The co-working space also has meeting rooms available:

2) Jūrmala is — following right after Riga — the second most preferred place to start a business in Latvia — and as an investor, it can be interesting to look into Jūrmala and Latvia. The destination is known to provide great support and a very active start-up ecosystem offers good opportunities for building up a business in Europe. Obtain a residence permit in Latvia when purchasing real estate or commercial real estate or invest in a new or existing business to obtain a residence permit based on business investment.

Read about the reasons, why foreign investors have chosen Latvia for their business plans.

The hottest industries and company cases are introduced in the Magnetic Latvia Magazine of LIAA and supplemented by much good information.

The three main clusters for Jūrmala city and the development of tourism are:

Well-being and health: Spas, healing from nature (mineral water baths and pools, Sulphur water, medical mud baths and applications), Horse-riding therapy, healing aspects of the pine forest and sea air.

Nature and active tourism

MICE (with programs created from the previous themes — well-being, health, SPAS and medicine, environment, business, education, investments).

For non-profit events, the city of Jūrmala offers a special support: The Jūrmala city council has a regulation “ About co-financing conferences, seminars and cross-industry events” where it’s possible to get until 70% co-finance. For now, the regulation is only in Latvian because only companies and NGOs registered in Latvia can qualify but the city is working on some changes. Basically, if you will be organizing an international event in Jūrmala and you are spending at least 1 night there you can apply for this support. For up to 70 % it is worth a try!

Ms. Ieva Kreile, Senior Expert in Jurmala city council development department, tourism and business development division, is in charge of MICE and will be able to guide you. Her email address is Ieva.Kreile@jurmala.lv.