One of the pleasures for corporate types, who often leave home to attend sales and other meetings, is taking in new surroundings. In California, those surroundings are often picture-perfect.
Views from the state’s meetings-friendly hotels and venues can be of cityscapes or natural wonders, including forests, peaks, bays and the glorious Pacific Ocean.
Ask any attendee and they’ll tell you there is something special about cozying up to water views at the end of a busy day. From the likes of Northern California’s Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay to Central California’s Crowne Plaza Ventura Beach down to Southern California’s Balboa Bay Club and Resort in Newport Beach, the state sports countless waterfront rooms.
Following is a small sampling of options.
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Perched over the waters of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, the Monterey Plaza Hotel & Spa (831.646.1700) epitomizes the Northern California coastal experience, according to Doug Phillips, the property’s director of sales and marketing."I often tell our clients that stepping into one of our ocean-view rooms is like stepping into the Marine Sanctuary," he says. "You become part of the experience."
The resort’s features include 290 guest rooms, 17,000 square feet of meeting space and two award-winning restaurants: the Duck Club Grill and Schooners Bistro. In addition, Phillips adds, the newly opened Cafe La Strada is a piazza-style venue that offers indoor and outdoor seating to enjoy the seaside setting. -
At The Cliffs Resort (805.773.5000), newly renovated with 160 guest accommodations and 10,000 square feet of meeting space in Central California’s Pismo Beach, attendees will experience a little bit of paradise, according to Mike Casola, the property’s general manager."While sitting on your private balcony or enjoying a cocktail at the bar, the expansive views looking north toward the port of San Luis Obispo or south toward the dunes are strikingly similar to Capri," he says. "There are many major motion pictures filmed here for this very reason." Casola adds that guests can dune buggy on the beach, where they might spot dolphins playing or flocks of pelicans flying by.
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Southern California’s 302-room Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows (310.576.7777), with 25,000 square feet of function space, is situated on Santa Monica’s most historic site, where Wilshire Boulevard meets the ocean."The design of our five-acre resort gives us a serious competitive advantage, with over 75 percent of our rooms boasting panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean," says Sam Jagger, the property’s director of sales and marketing. "We are literally within a stone’s throw of the Third Street Promenade and the all-new Santa Monica Place shopping mall."
