This year could well be the best year ever to hold a meeting in San Francisco. Not only does the city boast a sparkling inventory of new and renovated hotels, but there is an array of exciting attractions and venues to be found everywhere from the lush glades of Golden Gate Park to the docks of the bay.
Sweetening the deal for planners is that San Francisco is now a much more affordable option for groups, with hotels offering more availability and negotiable rates than in years past. At the same time, the area has not suffered the cutbacks in air service experienced by many destinations; in fact, air service into San Francisco International Airport (SFO) actually increased last year, including expanded service on low-cost carriers.
Although San Francisco has suffered its share of meetings cancellations in recent months, Lysa Lewin, managing director of convention sales for the San Francisco CVB, says the city’s status as a visitor and meeting destination is holding up, despite the economy.
“We’re in a better position than some cities that are not known as leisure destinations,” she says. “We’re fortunate to have a great climate, plus great restaurants, museums and the things we’re known for, such as the cable cars and Golden Gate Bridge. And the airlift into SFO is a really big plus.”
SFO’s position as a major West Coast gateway is also an asset for meetings business in San Mateo County, which is immediately south of San Francisco and where the airport is located.
“SFO is an even bigger selling point for us than before because of the presence of new carriers such as JetBlue and Virgin America, and the fact that the larger carriers have maintained their service,” says Anne LeClair, president and CEO of the San Mateo County CVB. “People coming in from around the country don’t have to worry about getting here.”
San Francisco
While San Francisco’s downtown never declined the way urban centers did in many other U.S. cities, the scope of what is considered prime downtown real estate has expanded greatly in recent years. While Union Square remains the heart of the city and the grande dame hotels atop Nob Hill still offer the most stellar views, much of the action has been shifting south of Market Street to the burgeoning area surrounding Moscone Center and beyond.
With 600,000 square feet of meeting and exhibition space located in three buildings, two of them underground, Moscone Center is San Francisco’s premier convention facility. A renovation for the facility, which is to be funded by a recently increased hotel tax of up to 1.5 percent for guests staying at downtown hotels, is in the planning stages.
While two conventions scheduled for Moscone this year were canceled, most notably Cisco’s annual sales convention that would have used 42,000 room nights in August, Lewis says Moscone continues to enjoy a relatively high occupancy of 72 percent.
“We’re fortunate that we have a lot of association business, including a lot of medical groups,” Lewin says. “Those meetings are always well attended. It’s corporate business at hotels that is more worrisome, with travel budgets being cut. Also, exhibitors are sending less people to shows.”
To ensure strong attendance, Lewin says the CVB has stepped up its efforts to help planners market their meetings.
“We’re doing a lot to help organizations pre-promote the city to their members and attendees before they get here,” she says. “We’re also reaching out more to groups who couldn’t afford us in the past.”
The supply of hotel rooms within a short walk of Moscone Center, which offers 600,000 square feet of meeting and exhibit space and is the city’s premier convention facility, continues to grow. The newest large addition to the area is the 32-story InterContinental San Francisco, which opened last year with 550 guest rooms, 43,000 square feet of meeting space and a spa.
The new hotel joins other properties in the area such as the 1,500-room San Francisco Marriott, 1,896-room Hilton San Francisco, 551-room Palace Hotel, 532-room Hotel Nikko San Francisco, 667-room Westin San Francisco Market Street, 410-room W San Francisco Hotel and 260-room St. Regis Hotel.
Another nearby property, the 1,010-room Parc 55 Hotel, will wrap up the second phase of a $30 million renovation in May that includes a new restaurant called Crave 55. Other properties near Moscone that are emerging from makeovers are the Four Seasons San Francisco, which recently redecorated its 277 guest rooms, and the 90-room Hotel Albi, formerly the Monticello Inn, which recently refurbished its lobby and guest rooms.
At the same time, new entertainment and off-site venue options are also springing up by the convention center, including the Jewish Contemporary Museum, which opened last summer near the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The new museum designed by acclaimed architect Daniel Libeskind offers a variety of atmospheric event spaces for up to 375 guests, including a grand lobby and gallery with a jewel-shaped ceiling and skylights.
Just a few blocks north of Moscone, Union Square is ringed by major department stores, upscale shops and the 1,194-room Westin St. Francis, a historic property with a newly redesigned lobby, and the 685-room Grand Hyatt San Francisco. In the nearby Financial District, hotel choices include the 549-room Hilton Financial District, the 360-room Le Meridien San Francisco, the 362-room Omni San Francisco, the 158-room Mandarin Oriental and the 805-room Hyatt Regency, while a cable car ride up the steep slopes of Nob Hill leads to the 600-room Fairmont, the 393-room Stanford Court and the 380-room InterContinental Mark Hopkins, where generations of visitors have enjoyed a bird’s eye-view of San Francisco Bay while sipping cocktails at the Top of the Mark.
The eastern slope of Nob Hill leads down into Chinatown, crammed with produce markets, dim sum bakeries and souvenir shops. Crossing Broadway, Asian flavors give way to the Italian restaurants and coffee houses of North Beach.
Beyond North Beach is the city’s most popular tourist attraction, Fisherman’s Wharf, which draws visitors to its steaming crab pots and dozens of sea lions lolling on the boardwalks next to Pier 39. The wharf area offers a cluster of meetings-friendly properties, including the 313-room Hyatt at Fisherman’s Wharf, the 529-room Sheraton Fisherman’s Wharf and the 255-room Marriott Fisherman’s Wharf, in addition to the 252-room boutique Argonaut Hotel, located in the historic Haslett Warehouse at The Cannery.
At the city’s northwestern end are two of the city’s premier art museums, both with event space: the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park and the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. Across from the de Young, the California Academy of Sciences reopened last year in a stunning new eco-friendly building housing a planetarium, an indoor rainforest, aquatic exhibits, a natural history museum and a 2.5-acre “living” roof planted with California native plants and wildflowers.
San Mateo County
Flanked by San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean, San Mateo County is an eclectic mix of business parks, suburban communities, horse pastures, redwood forests, wetlands and a seacoast winding between driftwood-strewn beaches and fields planted with pumpkins and artichokes. While offering close proximity to San Francisco to the north and San Jose to the south, San Mateo County takes pride in being a low-key alternative to its urban neighbors.
“We emphasize affordability—with hotel and food and beverage costs that are lower than those in San Francisco,” says the San Mateo County CVB’s Anne LeClair. “We have great shopping and Stanford University in our backyard, which is a great source for speakers, and yet we’re also 72 percent open space that offers incredible scenic beauty.”
Along with San Mateo County, which includes Redwood City, San Mateo, Millbrae, Daly City, Belmont, Burlingame, San Carlos, Woodside, Hillsborough, Pacifica, Pescadero and Half Moon Bay, the CVB recently began representing the city of Palo Alto in neighboring Santa Clara County.
The area’s largest meeting and trade show facilities are the San Mateo Events Center, which offers 225,000 square feet of meeting and exhibit space, and the Cow Palace, which offers 300,000 square feet and arena seating for over 10,000.
San Mateo County is also home to the state-of-the-art South San Francisco Conference Center. Located a mile north of SFO, the conference center can accommodate up to 1,200 people with a total of 16,500 square feet of meeting and banquet space.
Many of the county’s major meetings hotels are in Burlingame in the vicinity of SFO, including the 789-room Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport, the 684-room Marriott San Francisco Airport, the 390-room Doubletree San Francisco Airport and the 404-room Sheraton Gateway SFO. Located a few miles south of the airport in Redwood Shores is the 421-room Sofitel San Francisco Bay, and in Millbrae is the Westin San Francisco Airport.
Several resort properties are located on the San Mateo coast, including the 221-room Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay, which offers golf and 17,000 square feet of meeting space. Costanoa Resort in Pescadero offers a secluded setting with 3,500 square feet of meeting space and 128 units that include lodge rooms, cabins with fireplaces and tent bungalows.
When it comes to off-site venues and recreational opportunities for groups, LeClair says San Mateo County has enough variety to suit any taste.
“We have opportunities for wine tasting or groups can do special trips to the farms down at the coast,” she says. “You can enjoy a clambake or take a yacht cruise on the bay from the harbor in Redwood City.”
Venues run the gamut from the palatial Fioli Estate in Woodside, which offers a mansion and 16 acres of European-style gardens, to the Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos, which features flight simulators and other hands-on exhibits.
For More Info
San Francisco CVB 415.974.6900 www.onlyinsanfrancisco.com
San Mateo County CVB 650.348.7600 www.sanmateocountycvb.com
