With the convention industry in New Orleans wiped out through at least March, a Lawrence-based trade association is moving its annual conference and show.

Golf Course Superintendents Association of America said Thursday that it would shift its Education Conference and Golf Industry Show to Houston.

The event – expected to attract 23,000 participants, draw 800 exhibitors and generate up to $25 million in spending – had been scheduled for Feb. 6-11 in New Orleans. Earlier this week, association officials had been hoping to fulfill those plans.

But Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath proved to be too much for New Orleans’ Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, hotels, restaurants and other related businesses and services. The New Orleans Convention & Visitors Bureau this week canceled the city’s conventions through March 31.

Golf Course Superintendents soon settled on the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston as an alternative site.

Evacuees stand in line to register with FEMA on Wednesday outside the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston. The Lawrence-based Golf Course Superintendents Association of America announced Thursday that it would have its annual convention at the center in February. Hurricane Katrina forced the evacuation of New Orleans and the surrounding area. It caused New Orleans to cancel its conventions through March 31. GCSAA had planned to have its event in New Orleans.

“Our first concern is with the people of the Gulf Coast,” said Steve Mona, the association’s chief executive officer. “Our intent was to conduct the activities in New Orleans if at all possible. However : we found that Houston offered the necessary housing, meeting and trade show space, and enabled us to keep the same dates we had for New Orleans.”

The show generates an estimated $8 million for the association, or about half of the organization’s annual budget. The event is co-sponsored by the National Golf Course Owners Assn.

Convention officials in Houston managed to reschedule smaller events to help accommodate the golf-oriented event, said Jeff Bollig, a spokesman for Golf Course Superintendents. The event will include donations for relief efforts.

Mona and Mike Hughes, chief executive officer of the golf course owners’ group, said that the event would be back in New Orleans in 2009.

“New Orleans has been a great host to us in the past and will be a great host to us in the future,” Mona said. “Everything we have done with them has been first class. Our associations will be active in the recovery process.”