Tuesday 14 / January / 2025
Muscat: Oman has won the bid to host a major international medical meet. It will be the first time for the event, which started in 1967, to be held in the Middle East.
The announcement on Oman’s bid was made at the General Assembly at the XVIII International Symposium on Atherosclerosis 2018 in Toronto, Canada.
The Board of the International Atherosclerosis Society (IAS) said that the Sultanate represented by Oman Society of Lipid and Atherosclerosis (OSLA) has won the bid to host the Triennial International Symposium on Atherosclerosis in 2024.
The 3-day event has an expected attendance of up to 2,500 delegates.
This, the 20th edition, will be the first time that the conference will be hosted in the Middle East with the first one held in 1967 in Chicago and more recent editions in Sydney in Australia and Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
The 19th edition will be in Kyoto, Japan in 2021. The team led, by Dr. Khalid Al Rasadi, President and Dr. Fahad Al Zedjali, Secretary of OSLA won the very competitive bid. The winning team included Khalid Al Zedjali, Director of the Oman Convention Bureau (OCB) and Gillian Taylor, Director of Business Development, Oman Convention and Exhibition Centre (OCEC). Dr. Khalid Al Rasadi said, “Bringing this international conference with global experts and having them share their knowledge will benefit the Sultanate.
We are very confident that we will get large numbers of delegates from all over the world as Oman is such an attractive destination”. A key reason cited for winning was the involvement, engagement and activities undertaken by OSLA who hold annual courses along with local and regional events.
The association is also strongly involved with the International Atherosclerosis Society of which Dr. Khalid Al Rasadi is an active Board’s member. Dr. Khalid Al Rasadi expressed his appreciation of the strong support of the OSLA Board’s members and their vision and ambitions to bring such important events to the region in the field of Lipid and Atherosclerosis.
The Ministry of Tourism supports all efforts towards enhancing the MICE tourism sector in Oman. The Ministry’s initiative in establishing the Oman Convention Bureau under its supervision is a milestone towards building a foundation and achieving objectives in the MICE tourism sector.
The bureau also aims to use various external channels to promote MICE internationally. Khalid Al Zedjali, Director of the Oman Convention Bureau stated that, “The symposium will bring direct, indirect and induced economic benefits to the Sultanate in addition to the strategic impact such an event has on the country.
Conference attendees are high on the list of visitors that Oman wishes to attract and we know that they will leave with a positive impression and may return at a future dates with their families, colleagues or friends.”
