Planners often book the popular area of Northern California encompassing Monterey, Carmel and Santa Cruz for the same reasons leisure tourists visit—its attractive lineup of resorts and boutique properties, its ruggedly handsome coastline and its intriguing history inherent in attractions such as Monterey’s Cannery Row and Santa Cruz’s boardwalk.
Attendees further enjoy partaking in pursuits locals have at their fingertips, including shopping and dining in Carmel, kayaking alongside sea otters and other critters in Monterey, taking surf lessons in Santa Cruz, and golfing in Pebble Beach.
For an event that attracts record attendance, planners should consider Carmel, Santa Cruz and Monterey, where they can count on a variety of meetings-equipped facilities, unique attractions and stunning natural beauty.
Monterey
It appears the members of Tripadvisor, who recently ranked Monterey No. 19 among the top 25 2008 Travelers’ Choice Destinations U.S., agree with Bruce Skidmore, director of sales at the Monterey County CVB.
“The colors are deeper and bluer than in Southern California,” he says of the region’s portion of the Pacific Ocean, its prized possession. “But there’s a lot more energy here than just waves rolling onto a beautiful beach.”
From its abundance of wildlife, including year-round seal, dolphin and whale sightings, to its array of convention properties, Monterey is “all about diversity,” according to Skidmore.
“We offer value-driven to upscale properties, all in a resort atmosphere,” he says. “With rates from $100 to $1,000 a night, we have a wide range of price points.”
Monterey’s main meeting players, which comprise the Monterey Meeting Connection (MMC), are downtown’s Monterey Marriott, which features 50,000 square feet of meeting space; the Monterey Conference Center, which is connected to the Marriott by foot bridge; the Portola Hotel & Spa; and the Hotel Pacific. The MMC, with a total of about 850 rooms and 75,000 square feet of meeting space, is actually a subset of the citywide Monterey Collection, which handles shuttle services and offers up to 2,000 committable rooms and 125,000 square feet of meeting space.
“It’s a profile of the biggest hotels within three miles of the conference center,” Skidmore says, citing the already mentioned MMC properties, Hyatt Regency Monterey Resort & Spa on Del Monte Golf Course, Embassy Suites Monterey Bay in nearby Seaside, Monterey Plaza Hotel & Spa, and the InterContinental Clement Monterey.
The InterContinental property is in an enviable position, as it’s situated right next door to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, a standby for memorable off-site events on Cannery Row.
A visit to the aquarium is one way to acquaint the group with ocean life. Another, Skidmore says, is to work with an outfit like Adventures by the Sea, which arranges kayak outings, surfing lessons, team-building events, catered parties on the beach and whale-watching tours.
“This is definitely a place where you want to stop and smell the roses,” he says. “Planners should incorporate the ocean, golf, dining, a visit to our wineries—all of these aspects.”
And if you’re in town with a group during September, the readers of JazzTimes magazine agree that you should check out the Monterey Jazz Festival, ranked the world’s best jazz gathering for the third year running.
Carmel
Situated next door and to the south of Monterey, the lovely and quaint Carmel-by-the-Sea has the best ambience in the U.S., according to readers of Conde Nast Traveler. Groups who visit this one-square-mile gem agree.
“Carmel has upscale characteristics and it’s not at all commercialized,” Skidmore says. “It’s a great walking town with hotels, shops and restaurants, and tons of character.”
The accolades don’t stop with Conde Nast. Travel + Leisure’s 500 World’s Best Hotels list includes two meetings-friendly properties: Carmel-by-the-Sea’s Highlands Inn, A Hyatt Hotel; and Carmel Valley’s Bernardus Lodge.
Also located in Carmel Valley and popular with meeting planners are Quail Lodge & Golf Club and Carmel Valley Ranch Resort. In the village of Carmel, aka Carmel-by-the-Sea, La Playa Hotel, Pine Inn and Sunset Center, a multiuse space that also showcases Broadway-quality theater productions, are among the favored facilities for groups.
Several of the top attractions to visit when meeting in the area are Carmel’s white-sand beach, the Basilica of Mission San Carlos Borremeo del Rio Carmelo (otherwise known as Carmel Mission, founded by Father Junipero Serra), and Point Lobos State Reserve, “the greatest meeting of land and sea in the world.”
Named the top walk in the U.S. by About.com, Point Lobos offers visitors the opportunity to spot wildlife and explore a dozen hiking trails of varying degrees of difficulty.
Nearby Escapes
Aside from Pebble Beach, where every golfer yearns to hit the links, neighbors of Carmel and Monterey aren’t yet household names. Still, Pacific Grove, Salinas, Seaside, Marina and Moss Landing provide more options for planners looking to book an event in the picturesque area.
Considered one of the world’s highest-ranked corporate meetings destinations, Pebble Beach doesn’t disappoint its upscale—and often golf-crazed—clientele. In fact, two of its meetings-equipped properties appear on Travel + Leisure’s 500 World’s Best Hotels list: the Inn at Spanish Bay, which overlooks the ocean and the Links at Spanish Bay, and the Lodge at Pebble Beach, which is built around the world-famous Pebble Beach Golf Links.
Nestled between Pebble Beach and Monterey, Pacific Grove is host to great shopping opportunities as well as tens of thousands of Monarch butterflies, which descend on the Monarch Grove Butterfly Sanctuary every October. The main meetings property in Pacific Grove is the oceanfront Asilomar Conference Center, idylically located in Asilomar State Park.
The Monterey County CVB’s Skidmore says Salinas is known as the “salad bowl” of the county due to its spinach and artichoke crops, among other produce.
“It’s the agricultural heart of the area, and wine and vineyards are big here,” he says, adding native son John Steinbeck is as well. The National Steinbeck Center, which recognizes Steinbeck’s contributions, offers exhibits as well as space for meetings and catered events.
Just north of Monterey, Seaside and Marina offer more options for planners, including the Fairmont Resort Seaside, which features two recently upgraded golf courses and is scheduled to open in 2011, and Marina’s Sanctuary Beach Resort, formerly known as Marina Dunes Resort.
According to Skidmore, a 250-room hotel and conference center with 15,000 square feet of meeting space is on track to brand with a major chain and is expected to open in 2011 across the street from the Embassy Suites Monterey Bay in Seaside.
In Moss Landing, a fishing village with several small boutique properties such as Captain’s Inn, and some great restaurants, including Mexican food at the Whole Enchilada, visitors enjoy excursions to Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Reserve. Here, groups will enjoy the Elkhorn Slough Safari Nature Tour, a two-mile guided tour aboard a 27-foot pontoon boat, or a Monterey Birding Adventure via Jeep or van.
Santa Cruz
On the northern side of Monterey Bay, Santa Cruz is known as a sunny, laid-back spot where people take to the ocean to surf and to the famed Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk to enjoy amusement rides. But the area’s diverse geography is not common knowledge, according to Christina Glynn, communications director at the Santa Cruz County Conference and Visitors Council.
“We have the ocean and amazing forests,” she says, citing Roaring Camp Railroads, which has steam trains that take groups up Bear Mountain through the redwood trees. “They can come back down and have a cowboy barbecue.”
Glynn says everyone who visits wants to explore what Santa Cruz locals do, including heading to the forests and ocean, such as the Forest of Nisene Marks in Aptos, Seacliff State Beach and Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park.
“In terms of planning a meeting, we’re fairly unconventional,” Glynn adds. “We have a gentleman who runs a drumming group [Jim Greiner’s Hands-On Drumming]. Everyone picks a different percussion instrument, and people work together with the different sounds to create one harmony—it’s very Santa Cruz.”
It’s also “very Santa Cruz” to surf, and planners often consider team building via surf schools such as Club Ed Surf Camp and Richard Schmidt School of Surfing.
“The best time to surf is in the winter,” Glynn says, adding that less-adventurous groups could also take to the water with kayak outfitters such as Kayak Connection.
Among Santa Cruz’s meetings-friendly properties are the Hilton Santa Cruz/Scotts Valley, the Santa Cruz Dream Inn, Chaminade Resort, the University Inn & Conference Center, and Cocoanut Grove, which is located on the boardwalk with function space, arcade games and miniature golf.
At press time there was no opening date scheduled for a 155-room Marriott Courtyard property, though according to Glynn, one is expected to open in the future near the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.
“There are also a lot of campgrounds that could provide a unique experience for groups,” she adds, citing Kennolyn, which is located a few minutes from town among the redwood trees, complete with a ropes course for team-building events.
Seascape Beach Resort and Best Western Seacliff Inn are located in nearby Aptos.
