Fasten your seatbelts. Because when you green-light a meeting on Florida’s Central East Coast, it’s life in the fast lane in every way.
Not only are the area’s meeting venues moving forward at warp speed, but visitors are literally swept off their feet by attractions that challenge the limits of acceleration, gravity...and surfboards.
Daytona Beach
In terms of both geography and mythology, the heart of Daytona Beach is actually just up the road in the town of Ormond Beach. Here in the “Birthplace of Speed,” where the hard-packed sands were ideal for racing a new-fangled machine known as the automobile, inventors with names like Olds, Winton, Ford, Chevrolet, Stanley, and Packard came to test their engines on the only reliable flat track in the U.S.
Today, the gentlemen (and ladies) of racing start their engines at Daytona International Speedway, home of the Daytona 500 and other massively popular events, including Kartweek, the Rolex 24, the Daytona 200, and the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
“Our Race Week and Bike Weeks are huge,” notes Tara Hamburger, sales manager for the Daytona Beach Area CVB. “Between that, the beach and the LPGA, it’s what we’re known for.”
Your meeting may or may not coincide with one of these meets, but you can still take your group for an amazing ride by planning a day at the Daytona 500 Experience, the “Official Attraction of NASCAR,” located just outside the speedway’s fourth turn. Within 60,000 square feet of interactive motorsports activities, your group can change tires in a timed pit stop competition, design and video-test their own cars, broadcast a race finish, and take a spin in one of three racing simulators, including Acceleration Alley, which pits visitors against each other in the race for the checkered flag.
Afterward, you won’t have to pack up and leave for your evening event; the Daytona 500 Experience offers a number of group meeting and reception venues—including the Daytona 500 Club, the Boardwalk Club and the Bill France Room—along with a full-production kitchen and catering services.
It’s just one of Daytona Beach’s many unique venues. Another is the LPGA Clubhouse, which is located at the LPGA International Golf Course and headquarters and offers three meeting rooms totaling nearly 3,500 square feet of space, each with a spectacular view of the greens.
Meanwhile, right on the edge of a pedestrian-only beach is the historic Oceanfront Bandshell, circa 1937, which can host up to 5,000 for gatherings that are accompanied by the sound of waves washing ashore.
The bandshell is part of Daytona Beach’s Ocean Walk Village complex, which includes shopping, dining, a 10-screen cinema, two hotels—the Hilton Daytona Beach Oceanfront and the Wyndham Ocean Walk—and the area’s largest meeting venue, the Ocean Center Convention and Entertainment Complex, currently undergoing a $76 million expansion to add 100,000 square feet of exhibit space and 30,000 square feet of new meeting space. Construction is slated for completion in late 2008, but in the meantime, meetings and conferences will continue in the center’s current 60,000 square feet of exhibit space and 18 meeting rooms.
“We need this expansion and we have the hotels to support it,” Hamburger says, referring to such properties as the Shores Resort & Spa, the Plaza Resort & Spa, LaPlaya Resort, and the Daytona Beach Resort and Conference Center. “We’ve got a lot going on in Daytona. But we’re still very competitive with our rates.”
Space Coast
Florida’s Space Coast is probably the only place where you can ask for the moon and the stars and actually get them. And the best place to look is at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, which started life in 1967 as a way to give NASA astronauts and employee families an overview of space center operations, but today has evolved into one of the state’s most popular tourist destinations.
The 70-acre center’s newest attraction, the Shuttle Launch Experience, opened this May after three years in development. The attraction sends sends visitors through the sensations of launching into Earth’s orbit, complete with a climactic countdown, roaring as the engines fire up, then the liftoff and ascent through Earth’s atmosphere. The five-minute launch sequence culminates in a breathtaking view of Earth from space.
“The public feels what the astronauts have felt and sees what they’ve seen, firsthand,” says Daniel LeBlanc, COO of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.
It’s all courtesy of digital technology, of course, as are other thrilling simulator rides at the complex. But the historic spacecraft on display are real enough, as is the world’s largest collection of personal astronaut mementos, the outdoor Rocket Garden and the special interest tours that offer insider views of the space program from launch preparation to liftoff.
Your event may even coincide with an actual shuttle launch; on Feb. 14, 2008, Space Shuttle Endeavour is set to blast off on the 25th mission to the International Space Station. Even if you miss the launch, though, the Kennedy Center offers a number of venues for group receptions and activities, including an enormous hall housing an actual Saturn V moon rocket.
Though out-of-this-world technology may take center stage on the Space Coast, you might be surprised to discover that down-to-earth eco opportunities abound as well.
“The Kennedy Space Center is located in the middle of a wildlife refuge,” says Bonnie King, marketing director for the Space Coast Office of Tourism, noting that the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge surrounds the center with 140,000 acres of estuaries, marshes and coastal dunes that are home to 500 animal species, including manatees, alligators, bald eagles, ospreys, and, everywhere you look, delicate butterflies. Not so delicate but under protection are the thousands of sea turtles that lay up to 600 eggs on Space Coast beaches each year from May to August. Nighttime guided tours allow your group to witness this dramatic moment.
“We’re surrounded by sanctuaries and things of that nature,” King says. “We have kayaking, airboat rides, canoeing, pontoon boats, and paddle boating up and down the Indian River—lots of things you can do off-site or arrange in spouse programs and pre- and post-tours.”
Then, of course, there’s the surfing. It’s hang 10 heaven here in the home of seven-time World Surfing Champion Kelly Slater, who no doubt trained at Cocoa and Playalinda beaches, Sebastian Inlet and other tasty Space Coast locales. If your attendees aren’t quite up for surfing—but still want to look the part—make plans to stop by the fabled Ron Jon Surf Shop in Cocoa Beach, a multilevel store featuring its own waterfall and a huge selection of boards, bikinis and surf gear. Like the beach, it’s open 24/7.
Okay, so your group may not have 24/7 to play, but when it’s time to get down to business, the Space Coast is ready with a host of resort-based meeting facilities, including the newly renovated Crowne Plaza Melbourne Beach Oceanfront Resort Hotel, home to more than 16,000 square feet of meeting space, including a spectacular oceanfront deck for outdoor banquets.
Not to be outdone, the Holiday Inn Cocoa Beach Oceanfront Resort offers 13,000 square feet of meeting space, the Hilton Cocoa Beach Oceanfront has 10,000 square feet of meeting space, and the Holiday Inn Express Hotel & Suites in Cocoa boasts a 7,500-square-foot convention center.
For More Info
Daytona Beach Area CVB 386.255.0415
www.meetings.daytonabeach.com
Space Coast Office of Tourism 321.433.4470
www.space-coast.com/meeting
