From the tropical charm of the country’s southernmost city to the glitz of Vegas-style hotels and the cosmopolitan flavor of a hundred cultures, Southeast Florida’s dazzling blend of big-city excitement and beach-town appeal makes it a favorite of visitors from around the country and across the globe.
Here at the peninsula’s end, a day that starts with a solitary fishing retreat in the Everglades can finish beneath the pulsating lights of a South Beach dance floor. A meal that begins with conch fritters at an outdoor kiosk can end with martinis and dessert in a cigar bar. And a morning that opens in a state-of-the-art meeting room overlooking the ocean can melt into an afternoon on that ocean, speeding off on a plush yacht or towering sailboat for cocktails and dinner.
Such is the life of the convention-goer in Southeast Florida. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it.
Palm Beach
Past and present residents have included Donald Trump, Vera Wang, John Lennon, and the Kennedys—and Prince Charles drops in from time to time for a spot of polo—but Palm Beach’s legendary affluence is just one facet among many in a county so vast, it’s actually larger than two U.S. states: Rhode Island and Delaware.
While the island of Palm Beach itself is a gilded enclave of lavish homes, five-star resorts and designer shopping promenades, the entire county stretches for 50 miles west of the ocean and boasts a 47-mile shoreline of beaches from Jupiter down to Boca Raton. In between are hotels and resorts at every price point, and activities for every taste, whether your group wants to golf, shop, museum-hop, or take a dive through an artificial reef.
Until late 2003, virtually all of the meetings and conventions in Palm Beach County were hosted at area hotels and resorts, before a new venue became available for trade shows and larger events: the Palm Beach County Convention Center, a 350,000-square-foot facility set on 19 acres just three miles from the international airport. Boasting an exhibit hall, ballroom and 23,000 square feet of breakout space, the convention center is starting construction on a 400-room Westin flagship hotel.
For the many corporate meetings, incentive groups and conventions descending on Palm Beach County—56 percent of all arrivals, according to the Palm Beach County CVB—the county offers an enormous range of hotel-based choices, from high-end corporate properties to national hotel chains, independent options, and boutiques. Complete destination resorts like The Breakers, the Boca Raton Resort and Club, and PGA National Resort and Spa complement convention hotels such as the West Palm Beach Marriott and the Hilton Palm Beach Airport, while elegant boutique hotels like the Colony and Brazilian Court surround small meetings with style.
It’s been 100 years since Gilded Age snowbirds played croquet by the sea in Palm Beach, and while that genteel sport is still popular in certain circles, you’re more likely to see golfers teeing off on more than 160 public and private golf courses, or going for an ace on one of 1,100 tennis courts.
With Lake Okeechobee at its back and the Atlantic Ocean spread before it, Palm Beach County is also a haven for water sports like canoeing, sailing, deep-sea fishing, or—if you really want to do as the locals do—yachting.
The great outdoors is also on display at places like the Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens, a 2.5-acre botanical setting that can accommodate up to 200 people for an event, or the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens, where cocktail receptions are hosted on terraces overlooking bridges and waterfalls.
If culture is on the agenda, Palm Beach County fits the bill with 200 artistic companies and venues—including Ballet Florida, the Boca Raton Museum of Art and the distinctive Kravis Center for the Performing Arts—which work with groups for after-hours activities and special events. The newly expanded Norton Museum of Art, for example, offers banquet seating for up to 250.
Fort Lauderdale
The spring breakers are long gone, but “where the boys are” has become “where the tourists are” in Fort Lauderdale, whose visitor numbers continue on a record-setting pace, topping 10.35 million in 2006, a 2 percent increase over 2005, according to figures released by the Greater Fort Lauderdale CVB.
“The upswing in our tourism numbers is reflective of Greater Fort Lauderdale’s reputation as an increasingly sophisticated, upscale destination,” says Nicki Grossman, president of the CVB. “It’s a reputation that will only grow as new luxury properties continue to transform our coastline.”
Reshaping the destination are ultra-luxe retreats like the Atlantic and the St. Regis—both already open—the W and two Trump properties, giving planners elegant new options amid a sea of top-tier, convention-centered hotels and resorts that offer copious meeting space along with on-site perks such as spas, golf courses and beaches waiting right outside the door.
The Westin Diplomat Resort and Spa and the Lago Mar Resort and Club, for example, are both on the ocean, while the Hyatt Regency Bonaventure Conference Center and Spa is adjacent to golf, the Crowne Plaza Fort Lauderdale is next door to one of the state’s most popular shopping destinations, Sawgrass Mills, and gaming is on-site at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.
Complementing the meeting space at local hotels and resorts is the 600,000-square-foot Broward County Convention Center, set on a scenic point in downtown Fort Lauderdale overlooking the cruise port and Intracoastal Waterway.
With 23 miles of beaches and 300 miles of navigable inland waterways, it’s no wonder Fort Lauderdale is known as the “Venice of America,” and delegates can explore this scenic water world via water taxi or dinner/sightseeing adventures aboard the popular Jungle Queen Riverboat. Additionally, gondolas depart from the Stork’s Cafe waterfront eatery, while watercraft rentals range from powerboats and yachts to kayaks and canoes.
Past the westernmost reaches of Greater Fort Lauderdale, civilization dissolves into the vast wilderness known as the Florida Everglades, where Billie Swamp Safari offers guided swamp buggy tours through sawgrass prairies, cypress swamps and mangrove forests to view water buffalo, bison, wild hogs, hawks, eagles, alligators, and Florida panthers. Billie can arrange outdoor banquets, or groups can gather in an exhibition hall located in the nearby Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum.
Miami
The Caribbean meets big-city excitement in this tropical metropolis by the sea, where bronze beaches complement glittering steel towers, and a fascinating intersection of cultures creates an international dining and entertainment scene like nowhere else in the U.S.
But while Miami boasts the best in cosmopolitan living, including an electrifying arts scene, celebrity-studded nightlife and major sports franchises, it’s also the only city in the U.S. with two national parks: Everglades National Park, the third-largest national park in the continental U.S., and Biscayne National Park, 95 percent of which is under water. So pack your wetsuit and your best suit—both are appropriate in Miami.
Like Fort Lauderdale, Miami’s hotel scene has taken a turn toward the luxurious since the turn of the millennium, welcoming brands like Mandarin Oriental, Ritz-Carlton, JW Marriott, Four Seasons, Conrad, Trump, Rosewood, and Le Meridien, while W, a second Regent hotel and Marquis, Marriott’s luxury brand, wait in the wings.
Meanwhile, venerable properties like the Fontainebleau and Eden Roc are undergoing major makeovers—including the addition of meeting space—while nearly every boutique and Art Deco hotel on South Beach has evolved into a showplace of designer furnishings, state-of-the-art amenities, celebrity-chef restaurants and cool clubs.
While many of the hotels catering to meetings are clustered near the Miami Beach Convention Center and the Miami Convention Center downtown, there are dozens of options all over town, from massive convention properties surrounding golf courses to the collection of high-rise, top-brand hotels surrounding the airport.
In Miami, you’re never far away from a good time or a great beach. Just head east, where expansive golden sand beaches are washed by sparkling Atlantic waters from Sunny Isles in northern Miami Beach down to Homestead Bayfront Park Beach, north of where the Florida Keys begin.
Once the sun goes down, though, the clubs take over, especially on South Beach, which turns into party central as the pastel colors of the area’s historic Art Deco hotels and buildings—so soothing during the day—blaze with neon as music blares till dawn.
And if you’re looking for a little culture in your nightlife, Greater Miami is a major center for theater, dance, symphony, and concert performances, particularly since the October 2006 opening of the Carnival Center for the Performing Arts, home to the Concert Association of Florida, the Florida Grand Opera, the Miami City Ballet, and the New World Symphony.
This architecturally imposing building, set on the north end of downtown Miami, also contains a number of spaces available for group events, including flexible lobbies, theaters, outdoor plazas, and elegant private salons.
The Florida Keys and Key West
Go ahead and book that pre- or post-meeting tour. Because once you see the Florida Keys and Key West—the southernmost city in the U.S.—you won’t want to leave.
“It’s a decompression,” says Jack Meier, destination sales manager for the Florida Keys and Key West, the promotional brand of the Monroe County Tourist Development Council. “Once it opens up just past Islamorada and you hit that first bridge and there’s water all around, it’s like, whoa! Miami’s a million miles away!”
For that matter, it feels like civilization’s a million miles away as you prowl the streets of Old Key West, cast your line into the waters off Islamorada—favorite fishing spot of Ernest Hemingway—or take a glass-bottom boat tour through John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, first undersea park in the nation and home to the only living coral reef in the continental U.S.
Like most things in the Keys, meetings and conventions are laid-back in spirit and casual in dress. There are no major convention centers and the crowds that accompany them, though full-service resorts like Ocean Reef Club, the Marriott Key Largo Bay Beach Resort, Hawk’s Cay on Duck Key, and the hotels of Key West—including the Casa Marina Resort, Ocean Key Resort and Spa, and the Westin Key West Resort and Marina—can accommodate small to midsize groups.
Meanwhile, a host of luxury hideaways like Little Palm Island Resort create a secluded setting for corporate retreats and incentive groups.
“Incentives love the Keys,” Meier says. “They come in, have a cocktail reception, hand out a few awards, then go deep-sea fishing or hit the golf course.”
There are golf courses up and down the Keys, but being surrounded by water at every turn takes its toll, drawing most people to snorkeling, diving, boating, windsurfing, and fishing the waters that are home to more trophy-winning fish than any other destination in the world.
After working up an appetite, you’ll probably find yourself at a bay or oceanside table, surrounded by the very waters that were home to your dinner that morning. Fresh seafood is definitely a given in the Keys.
And when it comes to shopping, be prepared to go home with more luggage than you brought. Irresistible souvenir shops and stands line the Overseas Highway—a scenic extension of U.S. Highway 1 that runs through the Keys—while in Key West, eclectic boutiques and galleries sell items you literally will not find anywhere else in the world.
