If not a banner year, 2011 is shaping up to be a respectable year for meetings and conventions in the Sunshine State. Bookings are stronger, the economy is picking up, and last year’s oil spill is fading from memory—only fair, since its physical effects on Florida were negligible.
"What we’re hearing from our CVBs is that they’re definitely putting business on the books. Business is coming in," says Joyce Stillwell, director of sales for Visit Florida, the state’s official tourism marketing corporation.
Business seems to be coming in on all fronts, according to information released by Visit Florida in February, showing an estimated 82.6 million Florida visitors in 2010, an increase of 2.1 percent over 2009 figures.
With the state’s many vacation attributes no doubt responsible, Stillwell attributes part of the credit to Mother Nature.
"Because of the horrendous weather in the Midwest and Northeast, we [recently] launched a promotion that basically states, ‘Minds meet better when the temperature is above 32 degrees,’" she says. "We feel location is important to the success of any meeting. It bolsters productivity. Florida is well positioned now to market and to keep our brand top of mind, and that’s what we’re doing."
Self-Promotion
With Visit Florida focused on promoting the entire state, individual destinations are looking for creative ways to lure more meetings and conventions.
Visit Jacksonville, for one, launched a number of booking incentive programs, including the popular Cash for Contracts, which rewards $5 for every room booked (50-room minimum) for meetings taking place between June and December.
"Programs like this really helped us get through the economic downturn," says Daniel O’Byrne, Visit Jacksonville’s new president and CEO. "Last year was more or less a record booking year. This year, we appear to be on that same pace. We’re definitely gaining momentum."
Discounts and incentives, including complimentary meeting rooms and savings on food and beverage, are also part of the Lauderdale Convention Collection, a program launched by the Greater Fort Lauderdale CVB to bring large groups together with the Broward County Convention Center and the six closest convention hotels.
More value, officials hope, will lead to more awareness of the value of meeting.
"Our industry has worked hard to talk about the value and significance of the meetings and conventions business to the economic success of organizations and the general economy overall," says Christine Tascione, vice president of convention and group sales for the Greater Fort Lauderdale CVB, which has seen meetings and conventions start to rebound. "[The] business is coming back. Attendance is starting to pick up in various sectors. Even incentive programs for later this year and next are starting to come back."
Other bureaus are reporting similar upward trending.
"Group business is definitely picking up. Short-term inquiries are strong and budgets are freeing up in the corporate world," says Ita Moriarty, senior vice president of convention sales for the Greater Miami CVB. "We came off a great 2010. Medical, pharmaceutical and health care meetings experienced great attendance, and in some instances were record breakers. Hotels feel good about 2011."
Also feeling good are the Beaches of Fort Myers and Sanibel.
"We’re seeing an increase not only in the number of inquiries that we’re getting for meetings, but in the number of RFPs that are coming through, whereas last year it was really, really slow," says Pamela Johnson, director of sales for the Beaches of Fort Myers and Sanibel. "I was just looking at our leads this year versus last. We’re up 3 percent, so that’s very encouraging. We’re still getting a lot of things last-minute, which can be shocking, but that’s just the way it is."
Indeed, flexibility and creativity have served many bureaus well over the past few years. During the height of the recession last year, instead of cutting back, Orlando deployed more of its resources to the corporate market, banking on its eventual resurgence. Today, the destination is forecasting an increase of 2.3 percent in 2011 over 2010 and a further jump of 4.8 percent in 2012, based on in-year and future-year bookings at the end of 2010.
"We are seeing slow but consistent improvement with corporate group bookings," reports Tammi Runzler, vice president of convention sales and services for Visit Orlando.
Though groups are still booking with shorter-than-normal lead times, Runzler says the destination is ready and able to accommodate them.
"We’ve had more than $4 billion in infrastructure development within the past two years," she says. "So as we climb out of the recession, groups are excited to find a whole new Orlando to experience, including new convention hotels and attractions."
Orlando blooms
In fact, Orlando’s new hotel inventory is in the double-digit range.
Among the hotels that have debuted over the past several years were the first Waldorf Astoria outside New York City, which is paired with a Hilton at the convention and leisure enclave known as Bonnet Creek, as well as two properties located at the Orange County Convention Center: the Westin Imagine, with 7,100 square feet of conference space, and the Hilton Orlando, offering 1,400 rooms, 175,000-plus square feet of meeting space and an open-air walkway to the convention center.
Set right across the street from the center’s main entrance, the Peabody Orlando unveiled a $450 million expansion last fall. The property’s meeting space now includes three ballrooms and two junior ballrooms, 99 breakout rooms, three green rooms and five boardrooms, all connected by two covered walkways to the convention center.
Other Orlando-area convention hotels have been busy as well. Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center in Kissimmee is gearing up for a renovation project this June that will remodel all 1,400 sleeping rooms and add new furniture in prefunction spaces.
Already a AAA Four Diamond award-winner, the Omni Orlando Resort at ChampionsGate has earned One Palm from Florida Green Lodging for its eco-friendly practices, including property-wide recycling. The 720-room resort, featuring 70,000 square feet of meeting space, is surrounded by 1,200 acres of wetlands.
Making life easier for planners, Caribe Royale All-Suite Hotel and Convention Center has introduced Passkey’s GroupMAX to its booking process, offering a more seamless online experience by providing customized booking websites for every client’s event.
Meanwhile, Orlando’s Villas of Grand Cypress—home to an Executive Meeting Center—has developed a "Player & Caddie" tournament for team-building purposes. The program pairs attendees into golfing twosomes, but requires them to change roles several times throughout the round.
Coast-to-Coast Expansion
Beyond Orlando, new hotels, major renovations and special programs are nothing short of a statewide phenomenon.
In Naples, home of both large convention properties and vintage boutique options like the beautiful Inn on Fifth, rejuvenation was the word as both the Hilton Marco Island Beach Resort & Spa and the Bellasera Hotel in downtown Naples added luxury spas, while the Naples Beach Hotel & Golf Club unveiled a new $5 million pool complex.
A bit farther north, the Resort at MarinaVillage in Cape Coral, part of the SunStream collection, recently opened its doors, as did the Hotel Indigo in Fort Myers’ downtown River District, which is undergoing a revitalization of its own with an Art Walk held the first Friday of each month and a planned expansion at the Harborside Event Center.
Across the state in Greater Miami, the new hotels are literally lining up to open: At press time, the Eurosuites in Doral was due March 12; the Cipriani Ocean Resort Miami Beach, the Element Miami International Airport and Comfort Suites North Miami Beach are all slated to debut in June; the Best Western Miami Springs and Hampton Inn & Suites Miami Downtown Brickell are due in August and September, respectively; and an Aloft hotel downtown and the second phase of the Bal Harbour Quarzo are set for December.
They join the new JW Marriott Marquis, part of a downtown convention enclave that includes the Conrad Miami, the Epic hotel and the Four Seasons, along with two spectacular airport properties: the newly renovated and rebranded Sheraton Miami Airport Hotel & Executive Meeting Center and the Doubletree Hotel & Miami Airport Convention Center, featuring refurbished guest rooms and 152,000 square feet of meeting space steps away from the Miami International Merchandise Mart.
On the beachside, the venerable Shelborne Beach Resort was recently renovated to the tune of $10 million, while the biggest renovation of them all belongs to the magnificent Fontainebleau, which completed a $1 billion makeover not long ago.
New hotels also made news in Greater Fort Lauderdale, which just welcomed the B Ocean Fort Lauderdale, with 240 rooms and 8,000 square feet of event space, along with what is touted as North America’s first and only full-service gay hotel: the 62-room Royal Palms. Stay tuned, as a Margaritaville hotel, complete with 349 rooms and meeting and retail space, is planned for Hollywood Beach.
Hotel renovations in Greater Fort Lauderdale included the Hyatt Regency Bonaventure Conference Center & Spa, which underwent a $100 million upgrade, redesigning everything from guest rooms to ballrooms and adding a Red Door Lifestyle Spa, Elizabeth Arden. Also completing a renovation was the Sheraton Fort Lauderdale Beach Hotel (formerly the Yankee Clipper), while the Harbor Beach Marriott Resort & Spa debuted a 10,000-square-foot oceanfront ballroom.
But convention facilities stretch all the way to the edge of the Everglades here, as visitors discover at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, home to 500 guest rooms, 40,000 square feet of meeting space and nonstop entertainment.
Not to be outdone, Palm Beach County is boasting big developments, including a revitalized downtown waterfront in West Palm Beach, where a 4,000-square-foot pavilion is available for public events and private parties, along with renovated resorts like the legendary Four Seasons, now sporting redesigned guest rooms, and new properties that include the boutique-style Seagate Hotel & Spa in Delray Beach, offering a ballroom and boardroom for meetings.
North Florida checks in with the Aloft Jacksonville-Tapestry Park, which made its debut in January, while at the opposite end of the state, the Holiday Inn Resort just opened on Pensacola Beach. In between, 30-A Suites opened last summer in Santa Rosa Beach, part of TopSail Village, while Florida’s capital city of Tallahassee welcomed its newest boutique property, Hotel Duval, with eight meeting rooms including a rooftop ballroom overlooking downtown.
Way down in the Florida Keys, the Silver Palms Inn opened last fall as Key West’s newest boutique hotel, while the Coral Lagoon Resort in Marathon completed a new meeting, conference and event facility for groups of up to 75.
One of the state’s busiest convention hubs, Tampa stayed true to forsm, with recent renovations at the Crowne Plaza Hotel Tampa Westshore and a new property, the Westin Tampa Bay, joining such venues as the InterContinental Tampa, the Tampa Marriott Waterside Hotel & Marina, the 600,000-square-foot waterfront Tampa Convention Center and the 20,000-seat St. Pete Times Forum, where the Republican National Convention will be hosted in August 2012.
But as Tampa shows its convention capabilities to the world, it’s also a great time for groups to try some of Florida’s up-and-coming convention cities, including Punta Gorda, home to the new 44,000-square-foot Charlotte Harbor Event & Conference Center; Daytona Beach, whose Ocean Center Convention and Entertainment Complex has grown to 205,500 square feet following a $76 million expansion; and Fort Walton Beach, where the Emerald Coast Convention Center offers a grand ballroom and 12 meeting rooms.
