So many factors can help drive attendance when you plan an event in Central East Florida, home of things that go zoom. Whether your event includes a day at the races—NASCAR, that is—or watching a rocket escape Earth’s atmosphere at the Kennedy Space Center, meeting at the speed of fun is all part of the experience in
Daytona and the cities comprising the Space Coast, including Melbourne and Cocoa Beach.
But don’t worry about keeping up; despite its high-tech profile, this part of the Sunshine State downshifts to low gear on miles of windswept beaches, in scores of hospitable resorts and across acres of verdant wildlife preserves.
"We’re a little more laid-back here," says Bonnie King, director of sales for the Space Coast Office of Tourism. "Planners know about the space center, but we’ve got great beaches and great meeting space, too. Why not enjoy it and see all we have to offer?"
Daytona
Sometimes it pays to come in second. With the recent completion of a $76 million expansion, Daytona Beach’s Ocean Center Convention and Entertainment Complex has advanced the area to a second-tier convention market with a total of roughly 205,500 square feet of interior meeting and exhibit space, including
30 new breakout rooms and an exhibit floor that can accommodate up to 500 10-by-10-foot booths. And get this—it’s only 400 feet away from the Atlantic Ocean.
"This is definitely a new day and a new beginning for Daytona," says Lynn Miles, a 25-year Daytona resident and the new convention sales manager for the Daytona Beach Area CVB. "The expansion at the Ocean Center has breathed new life into our area...it’s so exciting to see us advance to that second-tier level and be able to bring in the larger corporate groups and national associations."
Acknowledging that Daytona has long been a popular SMERF destination, Miles—whose professional background includes 15 years as a hotel catering services director—is already at work to change up the city’s meetings mix.
"One of my major goals is to market to D.C. associations, government and national, along with larger corporate groups that have never been able to use our facility until now," she says.
When those bigger groups do come in, Miles promises that they’ll be living large in Daytona Beach.
"We’re not trying to compete with an Orlando or Miami in terms of size, but sometimes in places like that you’re the small fish in a big pond," she says. "Here, it’s just the opposite. A group can come in and basically take over the Ocean Center and two or three hotels.
And so many of the hotels have had major expansions and enhancements as well," she adds, referring to an accommodations scene that within the past five years has gone from modest to magnificent.
Indeed, this former spring break capital has graduated into an elegant, oceanside resort enclave, with properties like the Shores Resort & Spa and the Plaza Resort & Spa leading the way in luxe additions—including new spas—as well as copious meeting facilities and a seemingly endless cycle of upgrades.
"Our hotels are ever-expanding and increasing their level of service to accommodate the needs of corporate and association groups," Miles notes, pointing to projects like the new Terra Acqua Day Spa at the Daytona Beach Resort & Conference Center, and ongoing upgrades at the Wyndham Ocean Walk Resort—including a recent pool refurbishment—where one-, two- and three-bedroom units are set on the ocean adjacent to the shopping, dining and entertainment venues of Ocean Walk Shoppes.
Conveniently enough, Ocean Walk Shoppes and the Wyndham are part of a six-block, seaside zone known as Ocean Walk Village, which also includes the Ocean Center and the 744-room Hilton Daytona Beach Oceanfront Resort, touted as the area’s largest convention hotel and boasting the second-largest amount of meeting space of all oceanfront Hilton properties in the continental U.S., with 60,000 square feet of flexible indoor and outdoor space, including two ballrooms and 32 meeting rooms.
"About 55 percent of our business is groups, so that’s our expertise," says Angela Cameron, the Hilton’s director of marketing. "We have a great culinary staff, and most of our rooms face the ocean. The fact that we’re right across from the Ocean Center is a huge plus."
Cameron also reports a strong association and SMERF group base but notes that "with the new space at the Ocean Center, we’re hoping to actually gain in the corporate market."
Space Coast
Gains and losses are driving group business on the Space Coast, set on the sands just south of Daytona and 45 minutes east of Orlando. With the space shuttle program ending—the last flight is set for Feb. 28—people were landing in droves at press time to catch what might be the final manned space flights from the Kennedy Space Center, at least for the time being.
"Unmanned vehicle launches will continue, and going after the commercial market and space tourism will all be part of the next step in space exploration," says Bonnie King of the Space Coast Office of Tourism.
If you don’t envision your group going that far off-site, the Kennedy Space Center itself makes a great launch point for group events of every kind, from team-building through authentic astronaut training to gala dinners with tables set up beneath a gigantic Saturn V moon rocket. And with the shuttle’s grounding imminent, King hopes one of the retired units will soon be on display at the Visitor Center.
"The space program is part of our history and what we’re made of," she says. "That won’t go away."
But it’s not only the starstruck who find the Space Coast captivating. Here, the final frontier also refers to one of the largest intact eco-systems in the state, with more than 250 square miles of wildlife refuges—including the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, which surrounds the Kennedy Space Center—and guided tours available by foot, car, kayak or bicycle.
Attendees also can channel their inner Gidget and Moondoggie in Cocoa Beach, recognized as one of the nation’s great surfing capitals and hometown of nine-time Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) world champion surfer Kelly Slater (at press time, Slater was going for title No. 10).
"Surfing’s very big here, and people enjoy it at any age," King says. "It’s also a great team-building event."
Get your group to hang 10 at one of many surfing schools, including those at the famed Ron Jon Surf Shop and the Cocoa Beach Surf Company, where the third floor also houses the East Coast Surfing Hall of Fame. Even the Four Points by Sheraton Cocoa Beach boasts a surf complex with beach rentals and surfing lessons. But for those who’d rather watch the wave than catch it, the Cocoa Beach Pier is a hot spot for surfing spectators, with restaurants, shops and bars nearby.
You might also catch an impromptu surf performance at a number of oceanfront properties that double as meeting retreats, among them the Crowne Plaza Melbourne Oceanfront Resort and Spa, the Hilton Cocoa Beach Oceanfront and for smaller groups, the Doubletree Guest Suites
Melbourne Beach Oceanfront.
Farther inland are the Radisson Resort at the Port—one of the closest hotels to the cruise terminals at Port Canaveral—which offers over 30,000 square feet of meeting space as well as free shuttle service to both the port and the Kennedy Space Center, and the newly opened Holiday Inn Titusville-Kennedy Space Center, with 1,500 square feet of meeting space.
With so many corporations still grappling with financial issues, the Space Coast’s more moderate properties might be all that more attractive, King notes.
"The recession has changed the corporate culture," she says. "The economy has taught us to maybe do things a little differently...so planners may be ready for something new."
