Thousands of delegates will spend millions of dollars over four days, Tourism Vancouver says
Jeff Lee
Sun
For the first time, the Vancouver Convention Centre is host to a meeting that requires both the old and new wings of the downtown structure. Photograph by: Gerry Kahrmann, PNG, Vancouver Sun
More than 7,500 pediatric experts, from doctors to social scientists to clinical researchers, will be in Vancouver this week for the first major post-2010 Olympics convention using the new Vancouver Convention Centre.
The Pediatric Academic Societies annual meeting is so large that it will, for the first time, require both the new west wing convention centre and the historic five sails convention centre to the east.
The agenda for the four-day conference is extensive, dealing with everything from new research in stem-cell therapies for childhood diseases to challenges in dealing with vaccine-preventable diseases in the developing world, to the impact of endocrine disrupters on child health.
One of the major issues also being discussed at the convention is the rising issue of child obesity.
Several workshops and discussion groups will look into how to deal with a worldwide rise in obesity and the root causes behind it.
On Sunday, one of them will explore whether obesity is a personal responsibility or whether it is a societal problem that requires government regulation and intervention, much like what is done with alcohol and tobacco.
There are also debates about the impact of climate change on child health, including a keynote address by Dr. John Balbus, the senior adviser for public health at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
Shinya Yamanaka, the Kyoto University professor who discovered how to turn human skin cells into embryonic-like stem cells — and thereby untangled the thorny ethical issue around stem-cell collection from embryos — also will give a lecture on his findings.
He was awarded the 2010 March of Dimes Prize in developmental biology for his discovery in 2007.
The conference also will see the delivery of more than 3,000 scientific abstract presentations.
As conventions go, the PAS conference will be the largest in Vancouver in 2010.
Tourism Vancouver estimates the conference will generate $62 million in economic activity, including $19 million in direct delegate spending.
But it will be followed over the next seven or eight months with six other major conventions that could not have been held here without the new convention centre, according to Dave Gazley, vice-president of Meeting and Convention Sales for Tourism Vancouver.
“We normally have about 90,000 room-nights per year in citywide major conventions. This year, even excluding the Olympics, we will have 170,000 room-nights. We’re getting bigger conventions, and more of them.”
Gazley said the message is clear: “It means our convention centre expansion investment was a good idea,” he said.
The province spent $883 million building the new convention centre and refurbishing the existing five-sails centre.
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