The New York City region is a place of superlatives. The great majority of the inhabitants of New York state live here, in the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester County and the two Long Island counties of Nassau and Suffolk. This area has over 12.3 million people and is an economic engine for the entire U.S. thanks to a diverse base of manufacturing, shipping, financial, creative and service industries. The areas surrounding New York City proper benefit from the excitement the city generates even as their suburban or rural spaces let people relax in a way that’s impossible in Times Square.
Although intense competition for corporate and meetings business here ensures that facilities are up to date, there’s also history that dates to the original Dutch settlement and the Revolutionary War. In fact, there’s a lifetime worth of places to explore, ranging from peaceful, award-winning vineyards to riverside and oceanside resorts to the buzzing steel canyons of the world’s financial capital.
New York City
New York City ranks with London, Paris and Tokyo as one of the world’s few undeniable capital cities—but for meeting planners, "New York City" used to be restricted not just to Manhattan, but the relatively small area of Manhattan known as Midtown. This is the roughly two square miles that contain Broadway theaters and the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, big hotels and corporate headquarters, and famous sights such as Times Square, the Empire State and Chrysler buildings, and Rockefeller Center.
Increasingly, though, the rest of Manhattan Island and the four boroughs of Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx are maturing as meetings destinations as their attractions gain recognition and as hotels and conference centers spring up beyond the confines of Midtown.
"Areas like Long Island City in Queens, and Brooklyn in particular, have really opened the eyes of meeting planners to look around the city," says Chris Heywood, vice president for travel and tourism public relations at NYC & Company.
He notes that hotel development in New York’s outer boroughs gives the city a product that’s increasingly geographically balanced. For example, while Staten Island is usually thought of as a residential community, it is just 20 minutes from Newark Airport and now has a Hampton Inn and Hilton Garden Inn that combine to offer a great meeting space.
Heywood adds that Brooklyn alone will soon have 2,000 hotel rooms, including a Sheraton that will open there in mid-May, helping push the city’s overall guest room number well north of 80,000.
Of course, New York is also a center for the arts, pro sports, fashion, the theater, publishing, music and media. The city’s density and huge population of talented creatives give New York a feeling of energy that is tough to describe but has never been duplicated. The city’s thousands of restaurants all compete with one another and there probably isn’t a global cuisine that isn’t well-represented. And despite all the city’s millions, New York remains one of the safest big cities in the U.S.
A seamless network of subways, trains, ferries and buses entirely covers the five boroughs, making it easy to stay in a potentially less expensive outer borough but still easily travel to perennial attractions such as the South Street Seaport, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, the American Museum of Natural History or the Museum of Modern Art without breaking a sweat.
Once a convention or meeting is booked, Heywood says, NYC & Company’s destination services department goes to work to provide planners with ideas and feedback on unique venues and restaurants. The city has also turned to meetings and conventions as one way of shoring up business during the economic downturn.
"A lot of the [previous] focus was on international visitors coming in to the city, but with the downturn in the economy, we felt [a need for] renewed focus on the meetings market and increased value and affordability for that," Heywood says.
Heywood notes that NYC & Company’s meetings and conventions group launched NYC Now at www.nycgo.com/meetingplanners to emphasize New York’s value and affordability for planners.
Any list of major convention venues here starts with the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on West 34th Street, a 760,000-square-foot venue that’s about to become even larger and that each year hosts roughly 80 trade shows and 70 other large-scale events. Square footage drops a bit from that peak—but not much, since spaces like Madison Square Garden and Lincoln Center are also available, and there’s always the possibility of meeting under the giant blue whale at the American Museum of Natural History, not to mention at hundreds of restaurants that cater to groups.
Among the many major meetings hotels are the Grand Hyatt New York, Hilton New York, New York Marriott Marquis, Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers, Waldorf-Astoria and the new InterContinental Times Square, all of which can accommodate hundreds and sometimes thousands of guests.
Long Island
Long Island is a beautiful stretch of land that transitions from the hustle and bustle of Brooklyn and Queens to suburbs, golf courses, farms and vineyards until you ultimately reach the lighthouse at Montauk Point 118 miles later, where there is nothing but the beauty of the Atlantic’s crashing waves.
Needless to say, Long Island’s diversity serves planners well, says Joan LaRosa, director of sales for the Long Island CVB and Sports Commission.
"Nine times out of 10, we have what they want," she says, adding that Long Island is close to Manhattan, it has suburbs, and it has resorts. "If you need to be close to New York, you can do that. We have great suburban locations within driving distance. We have a lot of resorts on the water, the Sound or the ocean, or if you’re looking for something different, our aquarium holds meetings and does team building, and our wineries have meeting space that you can follow with a tasting or private dinner."
Long Island is America’s original suburb thanks to the Long Island Rail Road, which enabled commuting from what was once farmland into New York’s Pennsylvania Station. Today, access to the entire island via JFK and LaGuardia airports, or by the increasingly popular Long Island MacArthur Airport in Islip, is equally easy. Long Island also has miles of beautiful seashore dotted with resorts, such as the Hamptons and Fire Island National Seashore, and is reasonably priced, LaRosa says, compared with neighboring areas.
"Long Island tends to have a reputation for being expensive, as expensive as New York City, but in fact we’re not," she says. "A planner would save quite a bit of money on their rooms and taxes, since we don’t have the $3.50 occupancy tax that New York does—and we have free parking."
Plentiful competition drives Long Island meeting facilities to stay completely up to date to attract corporate customers, LaRosa adds.
A small sample of meetings hotels on Long Island includes the Crowne Plaza Long Island in Holtsville, Four Points by Sheraton in Plainview, Gurney’s Inn Resort, Spa & Conference Center in Montauk, Hilton Long Island/Huntington Hotel in Melville, Hyatt Regency Long Island in Hauppauge and Long Island Marriott Hotel & Conference Center in Uniondale.
Westchester
Westchester County adjoins New York City to the north and includes well-known cities such as Yonkers, White Plains, Scarsdale, Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow. Yes, the Sleepy Hollow of Headless Horseman fame, says Kim Sinistore, director of Westchester County Tourism.
"We have Legend of Sleepy Hollow weekend every weekend in October, and then the Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze: 5,000 decorated pumpkins, some real, some not, all lit up at night and all laid out in a thematic area at Van Cortlandt Manor in Croton," Sinistore says.
Never mind the hundreds of scarecrows that dominate Lyndhurst Castle in Tarrytown.
During daylight hours, Westchester has headquarters or large operations for numerous major companies, including IBM, MasterCard, Pepsico, Fuji Film and Starwood, which are attracted by the county’s central location within the Tri-State region and the Hudson River’s scenic beauty.
"What we like about Westchester is really the proximity—to New York City, to New Jersey, to Connecticut. It’s just a great area for access," Sinistore says. "With our airport [the White Plains Westchester County Airport], people can fly in from other hubs and cities and it’s a great area for businesses, meetings and conferences."
Sinistore also says people feel right at home.
"There’s a lot of greenery, parks, the Hudson River, Long Island Sound," she says. "Even in winter, people think, ‘Oh, snow,’ but we’re still open."
Besides Fortune 500-type gatherings, this year Westchester will host widely varied events, including the 2010 Women’s Flat Track Derby, a regional roller-derby competition at the Westchester County Center, a Chocolate World Expo that embraces chocolatiers from throughout the region and the New York Metro Reptile Show.
Major meeting venues in the area include the Crowne Plaza in White Plains, Hilton Rye Town in Rye Brook, Radisson Hotel in New Rochelle, and Renaissance Westchester Hotel and The Ritz-Carlton, Westchester, both in White Plains.
Paul D. Kretkowski writes frequently about travel, food and sports. He is also the founder of Beacon (www.softpowerbeacon.blogspot.com), a blog about foreign policy.
