Every November, the Location Development Section organizes a symposium for practitioners together with the Swabian Regional Forum of the German Association for Applied Geography (DVAG). Keynotes and lectures will be presented, specialist sessions will be offered and discussion forums will be moderated. Each year, the Martini Conference takes up a different current topic, ranging from "Smart Cities and Smart Villages" to "Place Branding" and "Social Media for Cities and Regions" to "Paradoxical Consumer Behavior". Between 100 and 200 councillors, mayors, tourism experts, regional managers, business promoters, city managers, location consultants and city planners take part in this event every year.

Topic of the 6th Martini Conference (Nov. 2021):
„New spaces“

Current information: Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Martini-Conference of the Applied Geography Swabia planned for November 11th, 2020 is postponed to November 2021.

Topics of past Martini conferences:

• 2019: Smart Locations - The Recipes for Success of Digital and Networked Cities and Regions
• 2018: Events for Cities and Regions - How Locations Really Create Added Value with Tailor-made Events
• 2017: Social media for cities and regions - How locations can benefit from Facebook, Twitter & Co.
• 2016: Place Branding - Cities and Regions on the Way to Branding
• 2015: The unpredictable customer - How paradoxical shopping behaviour can change the consumer landscape and how location development can react