Edinburgh Nets International Fisheries Conference

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND, September 15, 2010 (Press-News.org) The biannual event brings together up to 400 international scientists to discuss the latest research relating to every aspect of a fish's development from environment to growth, disease and migration.

Organised by the American Fisheries Society Physiology Section, the congress will deliver an estimated GBP774,000 to the Edinburgh economy and will be held at the Edinburgh Conference Centre at Heriot-Watt University in July 2014.

The American Fisheries Society is the oldest and largest of its kind in the world whose mission is to improve the conservation and sustainability of fishery resources and aquatic ecosystems by advancing fisheries and aquatic science and promoting the development of fisheries professionals.

Two other major conferences have also confirmed Edinburgh as their host destination.

The International Conference on Machine Learning will be held over four days in June 2012 at Edinburgh University's venue Edinburgh First. It is expected that 600 delegates will attend giving the Edinburgh event a value of GBP1.2 million.

Also scheduled to be held in Edinburgh in July 2012 in an international conference on Nitric Oxide, which despite being a simple molecule, is a fundamental player in the fields of neuroscience, physiology, and immunology, and was proclaimed" Molecule of the Year"1992.

Run over four days at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre it will attract 500 delegates and be worth almost GBP1 million to the Edinburgh economy.

These three conferences are among 23 new events confirmed for Edinburgh between July 24th and September 3rd this year with the assistance of the Edinburgh Convention Bureau (ECB).

In total these newly confirmed events are expected to attract 4000 delegates and inject GBP5.6 million into the Edinburgh and Lothians economy.

Sue Stuart, Chief Executive of ECB, said: "These twenty three new events in Edinburgh bring the total value of the conference we have helped win for the city since April to GBP33.2 million. With those conferences already confirmed and others in the pipeline I am confident we will achieve our target of GBP75.7million worth of the economic value for the meetings we assist in winning for Edinburgh this year."

She explained: "We have invested a great deal of time and effort into developing our Ambassadors Programme which identifies professional people in academia and commerce and works with them to attract the meeting of international association to Edinburgh. We are beginning to see that work, which has targeted younger professional people, begin to bear fruit."

- ECB helped win 257 conferences in Edinburgh during 2009/10 worth GBP74.2 million to the city's economy.
- Edinburgh is the most popular UK city after London for hosting international association meetings and is the 36th most popular business tourism destination in the world.
- In order to count towards ICCA ranking an event must rotate its location between a minimum of two countries and have at least 50 (international) delegates.
- The annual total value of Edinburgh's business tourism is estimated at almost GBP300 million.
- The Edinburgh Ambassadors Programme matches recognised leaders in the city's many areas of academic and commercial excellence with the professional marketing support of ECB staff who together work as a team to help them bring their international association's conference to Edinburgh. Since 1996 the programme has helped bring more than 210 major events, worth almost GBP100 million, to the city.
- Edinburgh is a founder member of the international http://www.bestcities.net strategic alliance, which aims to guarantee the meetings industry the world's best service experience in each of the member cities (Cape Town, Copenhagen, Dubai, Edinburgh, Melbourne, San Juan, Singapore, Vancouver).
- To learn more about ECB visit http://www.conventionedinburgh.com