TOURISM I But delegates who do come here in 2006 are expected to stay longer, spend more
BRUCE CONSTANTINEAU
Sun
Vancouver will host fewer major citywide conventions next year but delegates will stay longer and spend more money than they did this year — boosting the total economic impact on the city, Tourism Vancouver vicepresident Dave Gazley said Wednesday.
“If you use citywide conventions as a barometer, 2005 was not a strong year for us, to be honest,” he said in an interview. “But 2006 should be a stronger year, partly because of some big conventions we got on the books several years ago.”
Vancouver hosted 21 citywide conventions this year — events that attracted at least 1,000 outof-town visitors. That figure is expected to drop to 17 or 19 in 2006.
But Gazley said the 41,000 visitors to the conventions in Vancouver in 2006 will stay longer than the 50,000 who attended major conventions here this year, so the total economic impact will increase from $54 million this year to $60 million in 2006.
Some of the biggest conventions to be held in Vancouver next year include:
World Federation of Hemophilia congress in May, with 4,000 delegates.
American Roentgen Ray Society in May, with 3,000 delegates.
Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy in May, with 2,000 delegates.
World Urban Forum in June, with 3,500 delegates.
Canadian Cardiovascular Society in October, with 2,000 delegates.
Two other major meetings are also expected next year but Tourism Vancouver has not yet counted them as officially done deals — the National Hockey League draft in June and the Assembly of First Nations in July. Gazley also said the city convention market will benefit next year by the reappearance of two conventions that are held in the city every two years, including the Cruise-A-Thon cruise industry conference and the Globe Conference on the environment.
He said Tourism Vancouver’s Be a Host program, which encourages local people to try to attract international conferences in their fields of work, has been extremely successful in the past decade — helping bring about 30,000 conference delegates to Vancouver this year.
“Often, you can’t bid on a big international event unless you have a strong local organizing committee and people involved in that field that can act as local hosts for the group,” Gazley said. “The idea is to get people to take local ownership of showcasing the city to their professional colleagues from around the world.”
He said it can be difficult to convince some people to bid on a big conference because if they succeed, they could become responsible for setting up a local flavour to the agenda. But Gazley said the prestige and altruism associated with the effort often convinces people to take a shot.
“If there’s something going on here in cancer research that the world needs to know about, this is a way to share it with your colleagues,” he said.
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Convention traffic
Citywide conventions in Vancouver (attracting at least 1,000 out-of-town visitors): 2003: 23, with a total economic impact of $48 million 2004: 25, with a total economic impact of $70 million 2005: 21, with a total economic impact of $54 million 2006: 17, with a total economic impact of $60 million
Source: Tourism Vancouver
