Sacramento and the Central Valley have traveled an historic path from Gold Rush outposts to today’s all-American agricultural powerhouses anchored by a vibrant capital city. The region now offers planners a wealth of cultural amenities and meetings-friendly properties, plus all the natural wonders any visiting group could want.
Sacramento
Sacramento has long been California’s capital and a waypoint between San Francisco and Lake Tahoe. But lately this city of 460,000 has welcomed a movie star turned popular governor and experienced an impressive building boom.
Sacramento offers the eye-pleasing official buildings, monuments and parks of any self-respecting state capital, but it also has a relatively new skyline of office towers that hum along regardless of whether the Legislature is in session.
Sacramento’s museums honor the arts and many aspects of California’s history, and many are located in the historic Old Sacramento district. The NBA Sacramento Kings and the WNBA Sacramento Monarchs play at the 17,000-seat ARCO Arena, while California State University, Sacramento and the University of the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law supply educational gravitas.
The visual and performing arts also thrive here. In the 1990s the city threw bond money into expanding the Sacramento Convention Center complex and refurbishing its 3,800-seat Memorial Auditorium. Today, the center includes 134,000 square feet of contiguous exhibit space, plus the Jean Runyon Little Theater and Community Center Theater, where the city’s ballet, philharmonic and opera companies perform.
Hotel properties downtown include the Hyatt Regency Sacramento, Sheraton Grand Sacramento, Holiday Inn Sacramento, Hilton Sacramento, Doubletree Hotel Sacramento, Radisson Hotel Sacramento, and Red Lion Hotel Sacramento at Arden Village.
Sonya Bradley, vice president of marketing at the Sacramento CVB, says Sacramento’s Gold Rush history is still a major draw.
“The history of the Gold Rush is basically the history of Sacramento itself,” she says. “People landed on the shores of the Sacramento River and took off to the hills 30 minutes north of here.”
Sacramento is ideal for groups with 500 to 700 peak-night attendees, and the best deals are available during the first half of the calendar year.
Stockton
About 50 miles south of Sacramento, Stockton has twice been named an All-America City by the National Civic League, which Wes Rhea, executive director of the Stockton Conference and Visitors Bureau, says reflects the city’s efforts to better itself.
“It’s a national recognition that comes from efforts the city makes to take care of issues and challenges,” Rhea says. “A lot of times it’s youth programs and [other] programs geared toward making the community better.”
Rhea says Stockton has put $115 million into its downtown in the past six years, funding a new waterfront ballpark and a 10,000-seat arena, plus a $9 million renovation of the Fox California Theatre as the Bob Hope Theatre.
The 179-room Sheraton Stockton Hotel at Regent Pointe opened on the waterfront in November with Stockton’s largest ballroom, measuring 5,550 square feet. Other full-service hotels include the 196-room Hilton Stockton, which opens after a remodel in March 2008, and the 202-room Holiday Inn Stockton March Lane.
The city enjoys minor-league hockey, indoor soccer, baseball, and arena football teams, and is increasing its fine-dining footprint, with a Paragary’s restaurant slated to soon join steakhouse favorite the Esquire Grill.
Modesto
Modesto was once considered a bit “out there,” but that was before its relatively low cost of living and location—roughly equidistant from San Francisco and Sacramento—turned it into an outer-ring bedroom community.
Nowadays the city hosts a leg of the Amgen Tour of California bicycle race and has also become a hub for high-end agricultural events.
Mary Lou Howell, sales manager for sports, tour and film at the Stockton CVB, says the city hosts many religious and fraternal events.
“It’s really a pretty friendly town, and people notice that when they come here,” she says. “The downtown area has so many restaurants, you could do a progressive dinner, and a lot of them have put in patios.”
The Gallo Center for the Arts is Modesto’s premier performing arts venue and includes the 1,252-seat Mary Stuart Rogers Theater and the 544-seat Foster Family Theater. In addition, the Art Deco State Theatre was recently refurbished and now hosts ballet, live music and movies.
Downtown Modesto also offers Thursday night art walks and a twice-weekly farmers’ market.
Meetings hotels include a Hampton Inn and La Quinta Inn, which were recently joined by a 200-room SpringHill Suites and a 250-room Holiday Inn Express Hotel & Suites.
Merced
Merced has long been the gateway to Yosemite but recently has focused on tourism in the city itself. Melyssa Laughlin, executive director at the Merced Conference and Visitors Bureau, thinks the brand-new University of California (UC) campus goes a long way toward sustaining that repositioning.
“We are definitely seeing an influx of meetings for the UC, parents visiting their students and students coming to visit the school,” she says. “It’s changing Merced every day, and we know over the next 10 to 20 years, it’ll be a college town.”
Merced residents are watching closely as the UC’s inaugural 3,000 students begin to swell to 25,000.
The city’s main meeting spaces are at Merced College, the Courtyard by Marriott and the Hampton Inn & Suites that opened in September.
Attractions include the Castle Air Museum in nearby Atwater, the historic Merced Courthouse Museum and tours of the Hilmar Cheese Company.
Fresno
Oran Cogdill, interim president and CEO of the Fresno City and County CVB, is irrepressible about Fresno’s tourism prospects, beginning with its proximity to Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia national parks.
“It’s also a very vibrant city,” Cogdill says. “We’re a diverse community with literally hundreds of languages spoken here. Our Spanish and Mexican heritage is tremendous. All those things make it a very interesting life here.”
Roughly $1 billion dollars has been spent in downtown Fresno in the past six years on everything from new courthouse buildings to a regional burn and trauma center. Agriculture remains Fresno’s No. 1 industry, Cogdill says, but agritourism today focuses on smaller organic farms and dairies, along with more traditional large-scale farming.
Fresno is flanked by the Kings and San Joaquin rivers and Fresno County has California’s largest number of lakes, so kayaking, rafting and fishing are all big draws, while Native American gaming and golf are popular on land.
The Fresno Convention and Entertainment Center is the city’s premier meeting and event venue, with a 13,130-square-foot ballroom and five meeting rooms.
Besides existing hotels such as the Radisson Hotel & Conference Center, La Quinta Inn Fresno Yosemite, Holiday Inn Airport, and Courtyard by Marriott Airport, Cogdill says three more low-rise hotels in the 60-room to 80-room range are being built.
Cultural facilities include the Fresno Metropolitan Museum, the Arte Americas cultural center, the Fresno Art Museum, and the unique Forestiere Underground Gardens, a series of nearly 100 underground chambers planted with fruit trees that grow through skylights.
National Parks
East of the Central Valley are three of the country’s most popular national parks: Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon. Superlatives fail before Yosemite’s massive granite faces, Sequoia’s giant trees, and the 8,200-foot deep Kings Canyon, which glaciers carved from solid granite. Needless to say, hiking and picnicking opportunities are endless.
While it’s easy to access Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks from Visalia, the 102-room Wuksachi Lodge offers planners year-round deluxe accommodations within Sequoia itself, plus meeting space for up to 80 people. There are also several motel-type properties close to the park entrance.
Yosemite National Park’s most famous lodging is the 123-room Ahwahnee Hotel, a wood-and-stone castle that has six meeting rooms for up to 150 people, while neighboring Yosemite Lodge at the Falls also accommodates functions for up to 150 people.
Mammoth
To the southeast of Yosemite, Mammoth Mountain Ski Area opened last month for another season of Sierra skiing.
The resort puts its 30,000-plus square feet of meeting space to work for groups year-round, along with a variety of accommodations options.
Intrawest Corp. and Starwood are transforming the area with the recent debut of The Village at Mammoth, featuring restaurants, boutique shops, art galleries, and the new meetings-friendly, 230-suite Westin Monache.
Visalia
Nicknamed “Gateway to the Sequoias,” Visalia is a growing city that retains its agricultural roots, and it also has a compact downtown that’s easily navigated on foot or via free trolley.
Beth Bruegman, sales manager at the Visalia CVB, touts the city’s restaurants, boutiques, galleries, and movie theaters, and the full-service Marriott adjacent to the 114,000-square-foot Visalia Convention Center, which just completed a multimillion-dollar renovation.
“We’re affordable, we’re available and we have so many off-site options and agricultural and cultural activities,” Bruegman says.
A new Hampton Inn will open in fall 2008. The property will offer conference space and 72 guest rooms, bringing Visalia’s total guest room count to about 1,200.
Bakersfield
Bakersfield is the Central Valley’s southernmost large city and has thrived thanks to affordable housing, proximity to both Los Angeles and Valley cities, and diversified agriculture, petroleum extraction and refining businesses.
The city has 4,000 guest rooms, meeting space for up to 10,000 and frequent sporting, association and agricultural events.
The Rabobank Arena, Theater and Convention Center hosts boxing, arena football, basketball, hockey, ice shows, and large meetings.
The Doubletree Hotel Bakersfield and Holiday Inn Select–Bakersfield Convention Center will soon be joined by a new Holiday Inn and a new Hampton Inn near the airport.
For More Info
Bakersfield CVB 661.325.5051
www.bakersfieldcvb.org
Fresno City and County CVB 559.445.8300
www.fresnocvb.org
Mammoth Lakes Visitors Bureau 760.934.2712
www.visitmammoth.com
Merced Conference and Visitors Bureau 209.384.2791
www.visitmerced.travel
Modesto CVB 209.526.5588
www.visitmodesto.com
Sacramento CVB 916.808.7777
www.sacramentocvb.org
Sequoia–Kings Canyon National Parks 559.335.5500
www.sequoia-kingscanyon.com
Stockton Conference and Visitors Bureau 209.547.2770
www.visitstockton.org
Visalia CVB 559.334.0141
www.visitvisalia.org
Yosemite National Park 559.253.5600
www.yosemitepark.com
