Hawaii Passes International Test
By Heidi Genoist -- Tradeshow Week, 8/21/2006
The Hawaii Convention Center, managed by SMG, said the first implementation of its international attendance building program was a success — and it has the numbers to prove it.
The 143rd American Veterinary Medical Assn. Annual Convention, July 15–19 at Honolulu's HCC, not only drew a record number of total attendees; it also drew around 15 times as many from overseas as the previous meeting held on the mainland.
It's been a couple years since the HCC first started thinking about doing attendance promotion in Japan, a country with which Hawaii has particularly strong business and tourism ties. Over time, the program evolved into a formal effort to work with American show organizers to help them boost their international attendance while in Hawaii by tapping into the greater Pacific Rim audience.
Last month's AVMA meeting was the first to take place using the HCC's international attendance promotion service. Preliminary numbers suggest it attracted about 10,000 total delegates, surpassing the previous record of 9,300 at the 2003 meeting in Denver. At last year's meeting (held jointly with the World Veterinary Assn., which collocates with the AVMA every three years), 3,670 veterinarians registered for the AVMA convention. This year, that number increased to 4,006.
The significant number though was that of international participants, which saw a huge leap. Whereas the meeting typically draws "40 or 50 international delegates," according to Dennis McCurnin, AVMA's convention management and program committee chair, this year's gathering drew more than 750.
June Matsumoto, the HCC's associate director of sales for Asia-Pacific, said about 300 of those 750 came from Japan. Another 40 to 50 were from Korea, China and Taiwan, other countries targeted by the attendance promotion campaign, which Matsumoto leads. The remainder was from a diverse mix of countries.
"I think, for a first-time effort, it was successful," Matsumoto said. "We were able to measure, and it shows us that we're moving in the right direction."
McCurnin backed her up on this. "If I were to talk to another association, I would encourage them to seriously consider coming to Honolulu," he said.
Matsumoto attributed the success of the program to good communication between the HCC and the AVMA, and to the unflagging efforts of Allen Miyahara, a retired Hawaiian veterinarian and active AVMA member with strong ties to Japan's medical and academic sectors who'd been pushing for years to have the annual meeting in Hawaii.
Matsumoto believes the AVMA meeting will provide a strong model for the attendance promotion program in the future. "We were pretty accurate in what we need to do," she said. "Now, it's just basically becoming better executed as we do it more often. It depends so much on the association and the information they provide. The better the communication, the better it will go."
The American Dietetic Assn. Annual Meeting/Exhibition Sept. 16–19 will be the next show to use the program. Several others are scheduled over the coming months.
