Business View Magazine | April 2019

98 THE PROFESSIONAL CONVENTION MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION 25,000 people to a city, everyone benefits, from the hospitality industry, transportation com- panies, retail and services industry. Adjacent cities also benefit, according to Karamat, as organizations, corporations, and associations want to expand their geographic reach. “So, the perception that if I have an event in Pittsburgh, I won’t want to go to Columbus or Philadelphia is false,” he says. “I may want to host a different event in another nearby city. The fact is, you want your business to grow in many communities. This is where convention centers and convention bureaus have an op- portunity to help their clients grow and make more connections.” THEN AND NOW PCMA was established more than 60 years ago to support various medical societies that used business events or conferences to foster their particular scientific niches. By the early 1980s, PCMA APAC Annual Conference 2018 in Bangkok PCMA Foundation Visionary Awards 2018