New Business Contracts

Through a joint collaboration between Tourism Toronto and the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Toronto has signed on for the highest level of sponsorship available with the Professional Convention Management Assn. The agreement makes Toronto the first Canadian city to become a PCMA strategic partner. It continues recent collaborations between PCMA and Toronto, such as the city's role as host for the 2007 PCMA Annual Meeting and the 2002 PCMA Leadership Conference.

Event Management Communications, a Web-based e-commerce event management software provider, and Creative Data Systems, a provider of exposition contractor and supplier management software, announced a joint development agreement to provide information integration services to tradeshow exhibitors and vendors.

The Albany (N.Y.) Convention Center Authority chose Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide to operate a 400-room Sheraton hotel to be built as part of the Albany Convention Center project. SMG will operate the center.

The city of Dawson Creek, B.C., hired Comcast-Spectacor subsidiary Global Spectrum to manage the EnCana Centre at the South Peace Community Multiplex, opening this spring. The agreement involves three other Comcast-Spectacor entities: a ticketing company, a food and beverage specialist, and a naming rights and sponsorship sales firm. In a separate transaction, Global Spectrum, which operates the St. Charles (Ill.) Convention Center, made a deal with Goellner Printing to be the convention center's official printing partner.