When San Diego hosted the annual convention of the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) last August, not all of the attendees were pleased. Some, it turns out, were overcome with envy.
“My CEO and I were just loving it when executives from other CVBs came up to us and said ‘just stop all this right now,’” says Margie Sitton, senior vice president of sales and services for the San Diego CVB. “Starting with the first night at ASAE, when we had the opening party on the Embarcadero with the harbor and the city as a backdrop, it was impossible not to be proud of this destination.”
But Sitton is the first to admit that it was not always so easy for San Diego to evoke envy among its competitors.
“When I moved here 20 years ago from Los Angeles, no one ever came to downtown San Diego,” she says. “Now it’s changed so much. It’s become a great place to live as well as to visit.”
Positive changes just keep happening in downtown San Diego, most recently with the December opening of the 1,200-room San Diego Hilton Bayfront right next to the San Diego Convention Center and across from PETCO Park, home to the Padres baseball team as well as a popular concert venue. Along with a whopping 165,000 square feet of meeting and event space, the 30-story hotel features a 4.3-acre waterfront park embellished with over $2 million worth of public art.
Also brand new is the 184-room Se San Diego, a luxury hotel in the financial district with penthouse suites, a rooftop pool deck and a full-service spa with Asian-inspired treatments. The hotel’s 20,000 square feet of function space includes a two-story ballroom, a 132-seat screening room, a professional recording studio and breakout rooms.
One of downtown San Diego’s biggest sources of pride is the Gaslamp Quarter, a once derelict area of flophouses and pawn shops that is now filled with galleries, eclectic restaurants and hip properties such as Hotel Solamar and Hard Rock Hotel San Diego. The district can even function as an exciting off-site venue for groups.
“On the last night of ASAE we did something that we never could have done 10 years ago—we shut down a block of the Gaslamp Quarter and had a street party,” Sitton says. “The shops stayed open just for the group and the restaurants became food stations offering their specialties. We had a tribute band to Neil Diamond and people were dancing in the streets.”
