While these are challenging times for most destinations, some are nevertheless gaining more visibility in the group market. While the destinations profiled here differ greatly in size and character, encompassing everything from a rural county to a major city, they are alike in their determination to step out of the shadows and let planners see who they are and what they have to offer.
Spokane, Wash.
A mid-sized city at the eastern edge of Washington, Spokane has long had an identity crisis—at least where the traveling public is concerned. Buffered by the Cascade mountain range, Spokane enjoys a much sunnier climate than the western part of the state and is a mere half-hour’s drive from the majestic Rockies of northern Idaho.
"Our biggest challenge has always been to get ourselves known for who we are," says Harry Sladich, president and CEO of the Spokane Regional CVB. "A lot of people think that we’re a suburb of Seattle and that it rains a lot here."
To clear up misconceptions and make Spokane known on a national level, the CVB joined forces with Hartford, Conn., to maintain a joint sales office in Washington,, D.C. More recently, Spokane and Hartford formed a partnership with Madison, Wis., to offer incentives of up to $30,000 to organizations booking events in at least two of the three cities. The offer is valid for meetings using a minimum of 300 peak room nights at multiple hotels.
"We found that a lot of groups we’re targeting had already met in Hartford and Madison, so it made sense to do this," Sladich says. "Planners have told us they like this kind of partnership—they can look at all three of us and consider an east-west rotation."
Before the partnership, Spokane had already laid the groundwork for national business by opening the LEED-certified Spokane Convention Center in 2006. At the same time, the Davenport Hotel, a downtown historic property, added a guest room tower, bringing its room count up to 649.
According to Sladich, Spokane is already seeing a jump in national association business, including the 2009 National Veterans Wheelchair Games and the National Rural Letter Carriers Association, both of which met in July.
"One of the compelling reasons to meet in Spokane is that you are the star of the show," Sladich says. "We’re big enough to host big events, but not so big that we have multiple meetings going on. The Veterans Wheelchair group told us it was the best experience they had ever had. They raved about the community and our ability to adapt to their needs."
Also boding well for Spokane is an increase in nonstop air service. United Airlines recently started daily nonstop flights to Spokane from Chicago and San Francisco. Along with other direct service from Salt Lake City, Minneapolis and Denver, Spokane also enjoys frequent service from Seattle, a 45-minute flight away.
Long Beach, Calif.
While it may be California’s fifth-largest city, Long Beach has often been overshadowed by other Southern California destinations with more glamorous personas. Now, however, with hot new entertainment venues, hip hotels and $1.8 million worth of innovative LED lighting displays adorning downtown and the waterfront, even the Hollywood elite is taking notice.
"People are really blown away by what’s transpiring in Long Beach—we’re becoming a playground for the Los Angeles area," says Steve Goodling, president and CEO of the Long Beach CVB. "In fact, at the recent TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design] conference here, a woman in the entertainment industry told me she thought Long Beach is ‘the undiscovered cool.’"
In recent years, a pedestrian-friendly downtown entertainment district has evolved in Long Beach, with visitor attractions, shopping, dining and nightlife all within walking distance of the convention center. They include the Aquarium of the Pacific; Shoreline Village, with a boardwalk of specialty shops and restaurants; and The Pike at Rainbow Harbor, an entertainment center with shops, restaurants, theaters and a 40,000-square-foot GameWorks.
Further embellishing downtown are two new boutique properties: Hotel Maya, which has a Latin American theme that includes outdoor areas with rainforest-like landscaping; and the AVIA Long Beach Hotel, which has a rooftop pool deck available for evening events. Also new downtown is Vault 350, a live concert venue and nightclub with state-of-the-art technology that can be used for corporate events and trade shows.
"We’ve expanded beyond being a convention city into one with exciting new upscale hotels, resorts and venues that appeal to a wider spectrum of groups," Goodling says.
He adds, however, that in today’s economy there some advantages to the fact that Long Beach is not yet a high-profile destination.
"We don’t have a stigma about being expensive, and yet you have a virtual playground before you at affordable prices," Goodling says. "Some companies are avoiding certain brands, certain cities, but we don’t fall within that stigma. We have developed a casual, urban waterfront experience."
Las Cruces, N.M.
With a new convention center—and the world’s first spaceport—opening next year, Las Cruces, located in southern New Mexico about 45 minutes west of El Paso, Texas, promises to gain a bigger presence on the radar screen.
With construction started in June, the new Las Cruces Convention Center will give the city about 35,000 square feet of meeting space, including a 15,000-square-foot exhibit hall, 9,360-sqare-foot ballroom and six breakout rooms. The downtown facility will be located near New Mexico State University.
"What this will do is open up our city to organizations who wouldn’t consider us in the past because we didn’t have sufficient space," says Rochelle Miller-Hernandez, convention sales manager for the Las Cruces CVB. "We’re looking at local, state, regional and even national business, including trade shows."
The CVB recently introduced a new website for the convention center (www.meetin
lascruces.com) and is upgrading its own site (www.lascrucescvb.org) to 2.0 status.
"We’re also using social media and encouraging local citizens to remind their own organizations to bring their events here," Miller-Hernandez says.
While a hotel planned for a site across from the convention center has yet to break ground, the city will welcome a new Hilton Garden Inn this fall. Major downtown properties include the 203-room Hotel Encanto de Las Cruces, which offers 10,000 square feet of meeting space and recently redecorated its guest rooms with Spanish Colonial-style furnishings from the New Mexico Museum Foundation.
Bound to create plenty of buzz for Las Cruces is Spaceport America, a launching ground for commercial space travel that will open by the end of next year. The spaceport will be the base for Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, which will take passengers up in space for an estimated $200,000 a ride.
In the meantime, visitors to Las Cruces can enjoy Spanish Colonial-era sites such as Mesilla, with its historic plaza; annual events such as the Whole Enchilada Festival, Cowboy Days and Southern New Mexico Wine Festival; the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Museum; a growing number of wineries with tasting rooms; and Starman Farms, the world’s largest family-owned pecan orchard.
Mendocino County, Calif.
Although it boasts its own share of celebrated wineries, quaint villages and upscale small properties, Mendocino County is not as well known to meeting planners as nearby Napa and Sonoma counties.
Hoping to correct the situation with new marketing infrastructure, the Mendocino County Lodging Association and the Mendocino Country Promotional Alliance joined forces to form a new organization, Visit Mendocino County.
"One of my jobs is to attract small meeting groups to Mendocino County—we’ve never had one person doing that, although we’ve long been a good destination for meetings," says Richard Strom, director of tourism development for the new organization. "I want us to be positioned as the new kid on the block."
Toward that end, Strom has been calling on planners, arranging site visits and participating in events such as the Affordable Meetings conference held in San Jose, Calif., last June. Another strategy is to work with the CVBs in San Jose and San Francisco as a pre- or post-trip option for attendees at conventions in those cities.
Mendocino County offers a range of destinations for meetings, including the main commercial center of Ukiah, which has a recently renovated conference center, and the coastal enclaves of Mendocino, Fort Bragg and Little River, which offer a number of group-friendly properties such as the Little River Inn and Mendocino Hotel.
"We’re ideally positioned for executive retreats and small association meetings," Strom says. "This is a beautiful place where groups will find rejuvenation, along with great wineries, hiking, kayaking and attractions like the Skunk Train, which provides customized excursions on a vintage train with special entertainment."
