Even without the spectacular beaches and year-round balmy weather, Central East Florida would be an incredible place to bring a meeting.
There’s simply nothing else like it on the Florida Peninsula, or in the rest of the country, for that matter. Not only is it the home of NASCAR and the renowned Daytona International Speedway, but a few miles down the coast, shuttles are blasting into the air from the Kennedy Space Center, which is itself set smack in the middle of an enormous wildlife refuge.
So if you were thinking about bringing a group in, and automatically picturing the sand and the ocean, try changing your focus a little.
"Planners could be more educated about our area," says Bonnie King, assistant director of the Space Coast Office of Tourism. "When you tell them, ‘Hey, did you know that when your group comes in, they can have lunch with an astronaut, or have dinner underneath a rocket and get treated like a VIP at the Kennedy Space Center?’ then they get excited. It’s about letting people know about the opportunities here."
Indeed, a sparkling beachfront that goes on for 100 miles isn’t a bad beginning to the rest of the story in Central East Florida.
Daytona
Almost as soon as men invented cars, they started racing them, and it all began in 1903 on the hard-packed sands near Daytona Beach, when wintering millionaires Ransom Olds and Alexander Winton went bumper-to-bumper in the sport’s first sanctioned timed trial. Winton edged out a narrow victory that first race, but Daytona was the overall winner, as the sleepy winter resort town became inextricably linked to auto racing, taking its place as the "Birthplace of Speed" and welcoming the world’s top racers to hallowed events like the Daytona 500.
Attendees may not be turning pro any time soon, but they can get the next best thing at the Daytona 500 Experience, a 60,000-square-foot attraction located just outside Turn 4 at the Daytona International Speedway. Here, they’ll test their "pit crew" potential at the Chevy 16-Second Pit Stop Challenge or find out how it feels to drive the Daytona 500 in a motion simulator that seats 32. If simulated racing isn’t enough, attendees can actually get behind the wheel at the Richard Petty Driving Experience, challenging the Speedway’s 31-degree banked turns in a NASCAR-style racecar that roars with 600 "horses."
You don’t have to set foot on the track, though, to enjoy the Speedway’s ambience of high-octane excitement. There are six venues available for group rentals, including the Boardwalk Club, the Daytona 500 Club & Lounge and the Sprint Fanzone, set within the Speedway’s infield and offering 215,000 square feet of outdoor event space.
But not everything runs at 200 mph in Daytona; if golf is more your speed, you’ve also come to the right place. Not only is Daytona international headquarters to the Ladies Professional Golf Association, but the LPGA Clubhouse, offering 3,500 square feet of meeting space, is available for group events, and there are dozens of area golf courses to play, several of which are designed by the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Rees Jones, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player.
And then there’s the beach—wide, welcoming and washed by blue Atlantic surf. Like those racers of old, you can still drive on 11 of Daytona’s 23-mile beachfront, though it’s also a pleasure to stroll its four pedestrian-only zones, the most central one being a mile-long stretch surrounding the historic Daytona Beach Pier.
It’s within this area that you’ll find Daytona’s premier meetings venue—the Ocean Center Convention and Entertainment Complex, which recently completed an expansion to add 100,000 square feet of exhibit space and 30,000 square feet of new meeting space, for a total of 205,536 square feet.
"We now have 33 breakout rooms, in addition to an arena that seats 9,200," reports Sally Gardiner, director of meetings and conventions for the Daytona Beach Area CVB. "We also went back and renovated the existing part of the center because we didn’t want the old with the new."
Directly across from the Ocean Center are the newly renovated Hilton Daytona Beach Oceanfront Resort—with more than 60,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor meeting space—and the Plaza Resort & Spa, part of the Daytona Hotels by Ocean Waters Hotels & Resorts collection, which checks in with 320 rooms and 32,000 square feet of banquet and meeting space.
Nearby, the AAA Four Diamond Shores Resort & Spa serves meetings with more than 20,000 square feet of function space, while the newly opened Holiday Inn Daytona Beach on LPGA Boulevard offers two meeting rooms that can seat up to 135.
Space Coast
If you thought things were on the move at Daytona’s Speedway, try watching a space shuttle blast off the launch pad and into space. Just don’t wait too long; NASA is looking to discontinue the shuttle program by 2011.
But even if your group’s visit doesn’t coincide with a shuttle launch, the Kennedy Space Center is still an out-of-this-world place to hold an event. Attendees can gather at the Kurt H. Debus Conference Facility, featuring early space program exhibits, and at the Apollo/Saturn V Center, whose centerpiece is a gigantic moon rocket revealed in all of its enormous launch states. They’ll gather, that is, if you can tear them away from simulators like the Shuttle Launch Experience; IMAX theaters showing footage shot by astronauts; or the ATX-Astronaut Training Experience, a team-building activity for corporate "crews."
Then again, meeting delegates may prefer terra firma and the timeless beauty of natural retreats like Canaveral National Seashore, the longest stretch of undeveloped beach on Florida’s east coast. Visit during summer and early fall when Canaveral’s 24-mile shoreline becomes the nesting ground for thousands of sea turtles who lumber ashore to lay their eggs; nighttime guided tours allow groups to catch a glimpse of this fascinating event.
Something else that comes ashore on Space Coast beaches—surfboards, and lots of them, especially in Cocoa Beach, recognized as the "Surf capital of the East Coast." Attendees can watch the action, try to hang 10 themselves or even just look the part by picking up some gnarly fashions at one of many world-class surf shops.
Meanwhile, there’s the meeting itself to consider, and if surfing is the theme, the Four Points by Sheraton Cocoa Beach features a huge Surf Complex with beach rentals, surfing lessons and shopping all under one roof.
If not, the Hilton Cocoa Beach Oceanfront offers 10,000 square feet of indoor meeting space and another 10,000 on its beachfront pool deck; the Radisson Resort at the Port boasts more than 30,000 square feet of flexible event space; and the Crowne Plaza Melbourne Oceanfront Resort and Spa features more than 16,000 square feet of meeting space, accommodating up to 1,000 people. Meanwhile, the 237-room Hilton Melbourne Rialto Place, with 14,000 square feet of meeting space and one of the region’s largest ballrooms, recently completed a $10 million renovation.
If that sounds a bit too conventional for your group’s taste, there’s always the Brevard Zoo, where the Nyami Nyami River Lodge, which accommodates 300 in air-conditioned comfort, overlooks a panorama of grazing giraffes. Meeting programs include zoo admission, kayaking tickets, special animal encounters and exclusive behind-the-scenes tours, while the facility features a caterer’s kitchen and private zoo access.
"Our zoo is small but mighty," King says. "It’s an amazing feeling, and it’s a great place to have an event at night."
