’s summer run of big conference wins has continued after the city this month (September) secured the 5,000 delegate European Congress on Immunology (ECI) meeting.

The conference in 2012 at the Scottish Exhibition + Conference Centre (SECC) will be worth £9 million to the local economy.

Glasgow saw off competition from Istanbul and Prague and Glasgow City Marketing Bureau (GCMB) and the SECC worked together to attract the convention.

It follows hard on the heels of three other major summer convention wins for Glasgow: the £1.05 million World Hydrogen Technologies Convention at the SECC in 2011 (1,000- delegates); the £1.2 million European Academy of Forensic Science at the University of Strathclyde in 2009 (1,000); and the £2.5 million European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology in 2001 at the SECC (2,000).

Glasgow has another reason to celebrate after the British Society of Immunology (BSI) - which successfully bid to host the ECI meeting in Scotland’s biggest city in 2012 - agreed to hold its annual meeting in the city in 2007 and 2008.

The conference Ambassador Programme run by the GCMB’s Convention Bureau assisted local representatives to win all of these major meetings.

The ECI win is the result of five years of hard work after Ambassador Programme staff approached Professor Eddy Liew, the director of the Glasgow Biomedical Research Centre at the University of Glasgow, to ask if he would support a British bid to host the ECI meeting.

At the time, Professor Liew was the vice-president of European Federation of Immunological Societies (EFIS). The BSI took a decision to bid for the conference and selected Glasgow.

Convention Bureau staff helped prepare the bid document, arranged site visits and assisted the BSI when they made their bid presentation at the ECI meeting in Paris in September.

Professor Liew said: “This is very good news for Glasgow as a city and for the academics working there. It provides a high profile for the scientific work in the city and it highlights Glasgow as a premier destination for international scientific meetings.

“The presentation by the Glasgow team was universally agreed to be superb and it blew the other competitors away.

“The Ambassador Programme was very helpful in introducing me to other Ambassadors, which gave me an idea of what is available in the city so that when opportunities to bid for conferences such as these arise, you can speak with confidence.”

Molly Doheny, head of the Convention Bureau at GCMB, said: “I am delighted we were able to help Professor Liew to win this prestigious conference for Glasgow. Our Convention Bureau staff have been working with him for five years to achieve this result, and this is a great example of our Ambassador Programme put into practice to deliver major convention business to the city.

”It’s also a clear demonstration of the competitive advantage that our brand, Glasgow: Scotland with style, gives us in situations such as these.  The brand was used to convey consistent messages about the city across the bid document, the video that we produced and in the presentation to decision makers.”              

Ben Goedegebuure, director of conferences at the SECC said:  “The bid in Paris for the European Congress of Immunology was against strong competition but we came out on top. This is another major conference win for the city and is testimony to the excellent teamwork between the different players in Glasgow's conference sector - from the Local Ambassador, the Glasgow City Marketing Bureau, the SECC and all other conference service providers that make Glasgow a principal conference destination."

The Ambassador Programme is a free one-stop service run by the Convention Bureau at Glasgow City Marketing Bureau (GCMB) to help people thinking about holding a conference. Ambassador Programme staff can help with everything from preparing bid material, budgeting, publicity about the city and marketing support through to help finding accommodation, venues and entertainment.