Fifteen Years In The Making – Nuclear Medicine Association Signs Deal To Bring Conference To Vancouver

Vancouver, BC (November 19, 2007) – The US-based Society of Nuclear Medicine has signed a deal to bring their 2013 meeting to Vancouver. The convention will bring approximately 3,500 delegates to the city in June of that year, utilizing the expanded facilities of the Vancouver Convention & Exhibition Centre.

Tourism Vancouver, along with partners the VCEC and local hotels, have been working with the association for 15 years in the hope of attracting the meeting to Vancouver. A key stumbling block was the lack of a facility big enough to accommodate the needs of their group and the demands of their program.

Host hotels for the meeting include the Pan Pacific Vancouver and the Fairmont Waterfront. The conference will generate 14,000 room nights, with delegates directly contributing $4.31 million to the local economy.

“The expanded centre gives us the ability to host a significantly larger number of delegates in one location, something we’ve been unable to do before,” said David Podmore, chair of the VCEC. “And we will now be able to also host a second or third conference simultaneously as the need or opportunity arises.”

Stan Hagen, British Columbia’s Minister of Tourism, Sport & the Arts added, “The secured bookings from these larger conferences will result in significant economic gains for the province. This is another example of a large convention that would not have come to British Columbia without the new expanded facility.”

According to Tourism Vancouver’s chair, Smith Munro, the potential of new business for expansion was identified several years ago and is now playing itself out just as planned. “As an industry, we’ve been working with these clients for several years to bring this business to Vancouver. Fortunately, we now have the means to close the deal with expansion of the VCEC being the key difference,” noted Munro.

Tourism Vancouver, along with the VCEC and the local hotel community, spearheads the Be A Host program which encourages local British Columbians to work with the tourism industry to bring their colleagues to Vancouver for a national or international conference. For more information on the Be A Host program, please visit www.tourismvancouver.com/meetings/host/.

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