Hawai'i's location in the middle of the Pacific, typically a challenge in attracting conferences, has become a selling point under a new Hawai'i Convention Center program.

Convention center officials are focusing on helping U.S. associations build attendance at their conferences by drawing more international participants, particularly from Asia. That makes Honolulu's central position between the Mainland and Asia ideal, they say.

The effort appears to have paid off last month with the American Veterinary Medical Association's annual convention here. The convention drew more than 10,000 delegates, beating the association's previous convention attendance record of 9,300 in Denver, Colo., in 2003, according to the convention center.

More than 750 international delegates attended last month's conference. The annual conventions usually have no more than 40 or 50 international delegates, said AVMA's convention management and program committee chairman Dennis McCurnin.

That was a boost for McCurnin, who said he was a little skeptical about meeting in Hawai'i because of the distance.

"But in the end it was not a detriment," he said. "It was our largest meeting ever."

Boosting attendance is important for the convention center, which is currently about 14 percent behind its goal of generating 700,000 room nights this year. Room nights are calculated by multiplying the number of hotel rooms by the number of nights those rooms are used during a given meeting or convention.

The convention center is working to shore up business through the next two years, with bookings "well above pace" for 2009 and beyond, said Hawai'i Convention Center general manager Joe Davis.

Davis credited Allen Miyahara, a now-retired Hawai'i veterinarian, in helping to bring the veterinary association convention here and increasing attendance from Japan and elsewhere.

"That was really the seed that led to this notion of how do we in a sense match North American associations with their Asian counterparts," Davis said. "And in doing this what we found is that Hawai'i's location becomes a terrific advantage. ... I think we have discovered something that has been right before us for a long time."

Rather than being perceived as distant, Hawai'i can be viewed as a destination that will help organizations increase the international element of their meetings, he said.

"Typically these associations are largely about education and providing member value, and what better way to do that than to extend their reach into other parts of the world where people are doing serious research and innovative product development."

Reach Lynda Arakawa at larakawa@honoluluadvertiser.com.