Ocean engineering experts gather on Tokyo Bay

Japan is a major player in the ocean engineering industry, and with many of the event’s participating and sponsoring companies based around Tokyo Bay, the location was especially appropriate for the 45^th International Ocean Offshore and Arctic Engineering Conference, OMAE 2026.

The Grand Nikko Tokyo Daiba’s many meeting rooms and large scale were well-suited for an event of this size. The largest OMAE to date, it attracted some 1,200 people representing 40 countries.

Tokyo City and the Tokyo Convention & Visitors Bureau (TCVB) supported the event with financial and in-kind support well in advance of the event.

“OMAE is a unique event in ocean engineering,” says Conference Vice Chair Professor Tomoki Ikoma of the College of Science and Technology at Nihon University. “OMAE is unusual because participation is split fairly evenly between universities and industry, it’s probably close to fifty-fifty. An event of this scale, with such a balanced mix of industry and academia, is relatively rare in my experience.”

A return to Tokyo for OMAE 2026

Tokyo was the site of the first OMAE to be held outside North America in 1986. Neighbouring Yokohama played host in 1997, so it’s been nearly 30 years since it was held in Japan. “About 2015, people began saying, ‘Perhaps it’s time to bring OMAE back to Japan,’” says Prof Ikoma. “We began our bid some 10 years ago and won on the third attempt.”

The Odaiba location of the event is just to the east of the Tokyo central-city area, on reclaimed land in the bay. It is a modern, popular area with a deep history: 19^th-century fortifications remain just off the shore, built to keep foreign ships away from the then closed, feudal Japan. “Tokyo is a very good host city, and Odaiba is a very good location,” Prof Ikoma says. “Most everything the participants need is right in the hotel area; there’s a shopping centre in the immediate vicinity and it’s only about 20 minutes by train into the centre of Tokyo.”

For many participants, this was their first experience of Japan, and they took advantage of Tokyo’s easy transportation links to tour the city. Guttorm Alendal, of the University of Norway, Bergen, did just that. “I first came here in the 1990s and stayed for six months!” he says. “So whenever I come here, I try to take advantage of the opportunity. This time I brought my wife with me, went to Nagano Prefecture, rented a car and enjoyed travelling around.” He added that Japan is an excellent choice for a major international gathering. “Tokyo is big enough to just take it all in.”

The facilities needed for a major international gathering

This was a big event. Sessions were held in 17 different meeting rooms on three different floors of the hotel, as well as in the main ballroom for major speeches, a banquet, lunches and the reception. Other hotels in the city centre were considered for the banquet, but holding all activities at the Grand Nikko meant the entire programme was in one convenient, central location.

Long-term TCVB support critical to event success

TCVB’s involvement was critical to the selection of Tokyo as the host city, and to the success of OMAE 2026. “They were extremely important to us, and tremendously helpful,” says Prof Ikoma. “OMAE is organised by the Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering Division of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), so the event administration includes ASME headquarters staff, as well as a professional conference organiser (PCO), a Canadian company that has been managing the conference for some 10 years. We can make recommendations, of course, about a hotel we might like to use, or about certain conditions we would like, but we can’t always negotiate directly or make the decisions. TCVB helped bridge the gap and supported us throughout the process.”

The TCVB connection dates back to OMAE 2014, as Prof Ikoma explains: “They supported us through three bid presentations, including at the last OMAE in Melbourne, Australia in 2023.” After Tokyo was selected and preparations moved into the operational phase, they continued to provide support, both financially and with extras such as the half-day city tours and welcome reception’s cultural experience programme, all of which were very popular. Representatives also attended last year’s OMAE in Vancouver, operating a booth and helping to promote the Tokyo OMAE conference.

Social and travel events add to the event’s impact

With attendees coming from around the globe and the amazing possibilities of a city like Tokyo, social events and local excursions were an important part of OMAE 2026. Many visitors joined an excursion to nearby Hama-rikyu Gardens, followed by a boat ride up the Sumida River to historic Asakusa. TCVB assisted in the planning of these events, including the selection of Kanda Myojin on the itinerary, a large and colourful Shinto shrine complex regularly visited by shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu and popular among Tokyoites, but still somewhat off the usual tourist path. TCVB also provided multilingual staff for the tours.

Hama-rikyu Gardens is a vast landscaped area of gardens and waterways, founded in the 17^th century by the ruling Tokugawa family. Today, it is a beautiful oasis in the city, surrounded by modern buildings and the mouth of the Sumida River/Tokyo Bay to the east. For Francisco Taveira-Pinto of the FEUP (Faculty of Engineering) at Portugal (University of Porto), it was a memorable day for his first visit to Japan. “It has been awesome,” he says. “It's so impressive, the city, the organisation, the traditions, culture, the new ways of dealing with things, the facilities, the metro and so on. Somehow everything just works!” Joining the event with his wife, Dr Taveira-Pinto agreed that Tokyo makes for an excellent event destination. “Oh, very much so, but people should know that things work well, but at the beginning, they can be a little bit surprised about the organised confusion of such a huge city! People here are very polite, though. Any time you’re in a new place, there are lots of new things, but after two or three days, you're managing things just fine. You almost forget it’s an urban area with 32 million people! It’s great to be out here experiencing the gardens.” Participants also noted other pluses such as the ease of taking trains to visit other interesting areas of the city.

After a leisurely stroll through this traditional Japanese landscape, a quick bus brought the participants to the nearby ferry port for a leisurely cruise up the river through the heart of Tokyo and on to the shrines, temples and shops of Asakusa.

An ideal setting for a major event

So it was an event for which Tokyo, and the Odaiba area, was a perfect fit. A waterfront setting tied to OMAE’s key activities; lots to do in the surrounding area; easy access to cultural and scenic activities; smooth connection by public transportation to airports, city trains and buses, and to Japan’s famed nationwide transportation network. As the participants noted, Tokyo is a city big enough to easily accommodate a major international convention with plenty of attractions and activities to meet a wide range of interests. It also has the infrastructure needed to successfully host a major event and the support system to assist with every aspect from the initial stages of planning to event execution.

For further information on hosting an event in Tokyo, click here