General Information

Asheville - The Paris of the South
Asheville, the largest city in Western North Carolina, with more than 68,000 city residents is consistently rated as one of the best places to live in the United States among metropolitan areas smaller than 250,000 people. Outside magazine rated Asheville as one of the top 10 cities "where you don't have to give up good living to live a good life." Vacations magazine rated Asheville one of its top 10 getaway destinations.

Registration Policies and Deadlines

Conference preregistration deadline is May 26, 2000. Please register as early as possible!

	Preregistration (before May 26)	Registration (after May 26)	One Day Only
Member	$395	$495	$295
Nonmember	$495	$595	$340
Student/Retired	$295	$395	$250

Your Registration Fee includes:

All general and concurrent sessions
Special shared sessions with the Association of Biomedical Communications Directors (ABCD)
Two continental breakfasts
Opening Reception and Awards Banquet
Association Luncheon
Combined Annual Auction
HeSCA Learning Resource Center and catalog
Conference book and handouts

Travel
Traveling into the Asheville area may take you a little longer than flying into Dallas, New York, or Los Angeles, but the trip is well worth the effort.

Two airports service the Asheville area. You can fly directly in the Asheville Regional Airport using Delta and USAir. Another option is to fly into Greenville/Spartanburg airport in South Carolina. Many more airlines fly into Greenville/Spartanburg and sometimes travel prices are lower. The Greenville/Spartanburg airport is about 1 hour and 15 minutes from Asheville . . . so if you choose this option you will want to check into rental cars, or possibly sharing transportation with other HeSCA/ABCD members. (Hey, this is just one more chance for networking with your colleagues.) Look for deals
on the internet!

If you travel into Asheville by car you will take I-26 from the Greenville/Spartanburg area; I-40 will bring you in from the West or the East; I-81 will bring you from points North (I-81 connects with highway 181, which then turns into Hwy. 19 / 23 and this brings you into Asheville). Regardless of which interstate you travel once in the Asheville area take I-240 to the Sunspree located at Exit 3-B.

Traveling around Asheville is easy. Trolley service is provided running from the Sunspree to Biltmore as well as the downtown areas. The trolley runs on an established schedule and charges a nominal fee to passengers. More information will be available upon your arrival to the meeting site.

Daytime temperatures average 83 degrees, with evening lows around 60 degrees. Humidity levels are generally pretty low in the mountain regions, however expect some humidity in Asheville as it is located in a valley. Regardless of where you are coming from, you should find the climate in Asheville, North Carolina very appealing.

A meeting of this magnitude could not take place without the hard work of the members of the Annual Meeting Planning Committee. The following people deserve acknowledgement for making this meeting possible: