In a place like California, where coastal locations tend to hog the limelight, it’s easy for the vast interior section of the state to be overlooked. But to do so is to miss so much of what the Golden State is really about—its rollicking Gold Rush-era past, its peerless agricultural bounty, its promise of unlimited opportunity.
Certainly for groups there is plenty of opportunity still to be had. While the coastal cities often command first-tier prices and boast high occupancies, heading just a couple of hours inland usually means finding affordable hotel rates and a warm welcome. And not only do valley cities offer surprising amenities and attractions, they are also a convenient gateway to some of the country’s most spectacular national parks, lakes and mountain forests.
Sacramento
California’s capital city may be one of the state’s best-kept secrets. While it’s a given that San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego offer great restaurants, smart hotels, museums and other attractions, not everyone realizes that Sacramento is no slouch in any of those categories either.
“As with any government town, there’s a stereotype that there’s nothing to do,” says Mike Testa, vice president of communications and public affairs for the Sacramento CVB. “But as soon as we get people here on a FAM visit, they see for themselves. Once we get people here, we get the business.”
When asked why meeting planners should choose Sacramento, Steve Hammond, the CVB’s president and CEO, says the city offers the location, value and amenities that many groups require, comparing well to other destinations in terms of convention space, room blocks and airport convenience.
Downtown Sacramento is home not only to the magnificent California State Capitol, but also to the Sacramento Convention Center complex, which offers 134,000 square feet of contiguous exhibit space, as well as the 3,500-seat Memorial Auditorium, Jean Runyon Little Theater and Community Center Theater, home to the city’s ballet, philharmonic and opera companies.
About 3,000 of Sacramento’s 12,000-room inventory are located downtown, in properties that 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.
The newest downtown addition is The Citizen, a 200-room boutique hotel operated by San Francisco-based Joie de Vivre Hospitality. It features an expansive terrace overlooking the capitol building.
“This is bringing a new kind of hip property to downtown,” Testa says of The Citizen. “It also includes a restaurant called Grange, which has a great chef from Atlanta who is amazed at the abundance of local, fresh ingredients there is to work with here.”
According to Testa, Grange is just the latest addition to the city’s burgeoning dining scene.
“We’ve had 32 new restaurants open here in the past 16 months, everything from chains like McCormick & Schmick’s seafood to individual places,” he says. “Even if the economy is down, the city has a great base to support restaurants because of all the legislators and lobbyists.”
He adds that Sacramento can also lay claim to being a wine destination, boasting about 200 wineries in the vicinity, many of which offer tasting rooms and facilities for private events.
“They tend to be low-key operations where you can actually meet the winemaker and enjoy a free tasting,” he says. “Some, like Bogle Winery in Clarksburg, can host corporate dinners.”
Sacramento, which played an important role in the early settling of California and is near Sutter’s Mill, where gold was discovered back in 1848, also offers a rich assortment of historic and cultural attractions. The city’s historic district, Old Sacramento, spans 28 acres along the riverfront and sports wood-plank sidewalks lined with vintage buildings housing restaurants, shops and galleries. Old Sacramento is also home to such popular off-site venues as the California State Railroad Museum and the Delta King, a restored 1920s riverboat that once plied the waters between Sacramento and San Francisco Bay.
Downtown Sacramento is home to several outstanding museums, most notably the Crocker Art Museum, known for its European as well as Californian and Asian collections, and the California Museum for History, Women and the Arts.
Another new downtown attraction is the Cosmopolitan Cabaret, a 208-seat theater. Over the coming years, a site north of downtown called The Railyards is slated for development. The project will include an entertainment center and hotels.
Stockton
Like Sacramento 50 miles to the north, Stockton enjoys proximity to both the waterways of the California Delta and the abundant agricultural lands of the Central Valley. The waterways run directly into downtown Stockton, home to the 10,000-seat Stockton Arena, Stockton Ballpark, numerous entertainment venues and about 2,000 hotel rooms.
The city has invested about $115 million into its downtown over the past seven years, including a new waterfront ballpark and a 10,000-seat arena, plus a $9 million renovation of the Bob Hope Theatre.
A year ago the 179-room Sheraton Stockton Hotel at Regent Pointe opened on the waterfront, offering a 5,550-square-foot ballroom, the city’s largest. Other full-service hotels include recently renovated Hilton Stockton and the Holiday Inn Stockton March Lane.
Modesto
Once strictly an agricultural town, Modesto has been growing in recent years as an affordable bedroom community for the San Francisco Bay Area. As such, it offers an increasingly sophisticated array of dining and entertainment options, including Thursday night art walks in the downtown area.
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 refurbished and now hosts ballet, live music and movies.
Group-friendly hotels include a SpringHill Suites, Holiday Inn Express Hotel & Suites, Hampton Inn and La Quinta Inn.
Merced
Long known as the “Gateway to Yosemite,” Merced now also promotes its location as the site of Merced College and a new University of California campus, which is eventually expected to have as many as 25,000 students.
The city’s primary meetings hotels are a Courtyard by Marriott and a Hampton Inn & Suites that opened last year. Its major meetings facility, the Merced Civic Center, can host groups of up to 500 people.
Possibilities for off-site events and activities include the Castle Air Museum in nearby Atwater, the historic Merced Courthouse Museum and tours of the Hilmar Cheese Company.
Fresno
With over $1 billion recently invested in its downtown infrastructure, Fresno is poised for growth as a meetings destination, according to Layla Forstedt, director of sales for the Fresno CVB.
“We recently developed a new strategic marketing plan at the bureau and have received increased funding from the city of Fresno,” she says. “We’re able to expand our reach—we’re even marketing internationally.”
Among the selling points the CVB emphasizes to planners is Fresno’s central location, its affordability and its facilities for groups.
“We have the capability of serving a lot of different budgets, which is very important nowadays,” Forstedt says. “And we have three national parks right in our backyard—Yosemite, Sequoia and King’s Canyon. Groups can easily do a day trip from Fresno into the parks.”
Recent additions to the city include last summer’s reopening of the 200-room Holiday Inn Fresno Downtown, which was converted from an earlier property. Major renovations have also taken place at the Radisson Hotel & Conference Center and two downtown venues, Saroyan Theater and Selland Arena.
Group-friendly hotels in Fresno also include La Quinta Inn Fresno, Holiday Inn Airport and Courtyard by Marriott Airport.
According to Forstedt, Fresno can comfortably handle groups of 5,000 to 7,000 at the Fresno Convention and Entertainment Center and adjacent Selland Arena.
Strong niche markets for Fresno include religious and association groups, along with government and sports business, a growing market for the city.
Visalia
Visalia is a growing city with a pedestrian-friendly downtown offering over 50 restaurants as well as quaint shops and galleries.
The city also boasts over 1,000 hotel rooms, most within walking distance of the 114,000-square-foot Visalia Convention Center, which can host groups of up to 2,000 people.
A new Hampton Inn recently opened, offering conference space and 72 guest rooms, bringing Visalia’s total guest room count to about 1,200.
Bakersfield
Don Cohen, manager of the Bakersfield CVB, likes to emphasize to planners that his city lies in almost the exact geographic center of the state’s population base.
“We’re within a four-hour drive of 90 percent of the California population, so that makes us a great draw for California-based groups,” he says. “If you’re trying to plan a meeting and you’ve got membership across the state, we’re the most convenient choice. Plus we have some of the most affordable room rates in the state. We can make the planner look like a hero—and that’s important in these tough times.”
Like his counterparts elsewhere in the Central Valley, Cohen dispels notions that Bakersfield offers little for visitors to do. Among the little-known attractions are at least a half-dozen Basque restaurants run by sheepherding families originally from the Basque country of southern France and northern Spain.
“It’s a real unique dining experience for a group to go to a Basque restaurant and have a family-style meal,” he says. “We also have the Bakersfield Museum of Art, which draws top visiting shows and is a great place to have a reception. Also, there’s the Kern County Museum, which really gives you a great feel for the history of the area and the importance the county’s gas and oil reserves. There’s a wonderful exhibit there called Black Gold.”
Bakersfield’s main meeting facility, the Rabobank Arena, Theater and Convention Center, is supported by about 4,000 hotel rooms in properties that include the Doubletree Hotel Bakersfield and the Bakersfield Marriott at the Convention Center, which was recently converted from a former Holiday Inn.
“We primarily target groups in the range of 200 to 1,000 people,” Cohen says. “We’re not trying to land the American Medical Association or compete with San Diego or Las Vegas. We feel that we have a good product for the midsize meeting.”
National Parks
East of the Central Valley are three of the country’s most popular national parks: Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon, all three known for majestic scenery and giant sequoias that are among the largest and oldest trees on Earth.
While Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks can be visited on day trips from Visalia, Fresno and other cities, the Wuksachi Lodge offers 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 deluxe lodging is the historic Ahwahnee Hotel, a wood-and-stone castle that has six meeting rooms for up to 150 people. More moderately priced, the Yosemite Lodge at the Falls also accommodates functions for up to 150 people.
Mammoth
To the southeast of Yosemite, Mammoth Mountain Ski Area is a major draw for mountain sports enthusiasts from Southern California. Within the resort are a variety of condo accommodations, restaurants and shops operated by Intrawest Corp. at the Village at Mammoth. Groups will find over 30,000 square feet of meeting and event space.
A new addition to the village is the 230-room Westin Monache, which offers over 2,000 square feet of meeting space.
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
