In the past two decades, San Diego has evolved into something much more than just the sum of downtown and a few outlying areas. Today, from the ocean to the inland mountains, nearly all of San Diego County is linked together by natural beauty, man-made attractions and high-quality meeting facilities that greatly enahce San Diego’s allure for visiting attendees.
As a testament to the entire region’s group appeal, in January, San Diego hosted the Professional Convention Management Association (PCMA) for the first time since 1996, drawing about 4,000 delegates to the city for four days under the theme “Convening Leaders.” Margie Sitton, vice president of sales at the San Diego CVB, believes this will pay big dividends for the city in the future.
“We believe planners will come back many times over the coming years with their own meetings,” she says. “We anticipate that this will generate hundreds of millions of dollars in future business. We were able to showcase for some key customers how their meetings could go in San Diego and what that would be like, and customers kept saying they couldn’t get over how nice the people were.”
Sitton notes that her organization now covers all of San Diego County, representing 131 conference hotels that range from elegant five-star spa resorts to conference and boutique hotels.
The San Diego CVB divides its area into seven unique regions. The East County is San Diego’s “great outdoors,” while the North County has the lion’s share of the golf courses and spas. Affluent La Jolla and nearby Del Mar frame the University of California-San Diego and Scripps Institution of Oceanography; the revitalized Gaslamp Quarter and East Village offer shopping, restaurants and Petco Park baseball stadium, and the Marina is the waterfront home of the USS Midway Museum and several conference hotels. The islands include Shelter Island, Harbor Island and Coronado, a peninsula connected by a bridge to downtown, which is the heart of San Diego’s maritime and commercial businesses.
Downtown San Diego
San Diego’s geography has made it a major Pacific port and naval base since Juan Cabrillo landed and claimed it for Spain in 1542. The U.S. Navy and marines have long had active-duty facilities sprinkled throughout the region, and San Diego’s sunshine and mild climate have guaranteed that both triathletes and military retirees flock here.
In addition, according to Sitton, San Diego has renovated its view of the meetings business, particularly in light of the renewed focus that the recession has put on visitor dollars.
“For so long we talked about the sunshine, great weather, the surf, but never said, ‘We’re serious about planning meetings here,’” she says. “Under the surface we [have] culture, art, the West Coast Smithsonian in Balboa Park—and we’re the craft-beer capital of the world. So we’re showing [planners] we have this inherent atmosphere where people get off the plane and say, ‘Ah, I’m here, there are the blue skies and now I’m prepared to solve problems.’”
San Diego can accommodate a range of groups, including mega events, as demonstrated by the annual Comic-Con entertainment festival, which drew roughly 130,000 attendees to the San Diego Convention Center over four days in 2010.
Top attractions include Little Italy, the longtime home of the city’s Portuguese and Italian fishermen (and their restaurants), and the Gaslamp Quarter, which has changed dramatically from red-light district to a highly walkable adult playground featuring myriad shops and restaurants.
Meanwhile, 1,200-acre Balboa Park is San Diego’s cultural crown jewel, and attractions range from the San Diego Zoo and the Museum of the Living Artist to the San Diego Air & Space Museum, Museum of Photographic Arts, Fleet Science Center, San Diego Natural History Museum and San Diego Model Railroad Museum.
Outdoors, visitors can check out a dozen major gardens featuring plants from around the world as well as the carefully preserved ecosystems of local canyons.
The downtown area’s top meetings-friendly properties include Manchester Grand Hyatt, Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina, Hilton San Diego Bayfront and San Diego Marriott Marquis & Marina.
Coronado
Coronado is frequently referred to as Coronado Island, but is in fact at the tip of the peninsula that shelters San Diego Bay and easily accessible via both bridge and ferry from downtown. It is an area of remarkable contrasts—ocean and land, certainly, but also leisurely vacationing and dining versus the all-business North Island Naval Complex, the Navy’s major training ground for SEAL commandos and other special forces, who frequently train nearby.
Coronado features a notably park-like setting and has four major hotels and resorts: the historic Hotel del Coronado (made famous in the movie Some Like It Hot), Loews Coronado Bay Resort, Coronado Island Marriott Resort and the boutique Glorietta Bay Inn (the only one of the four that lacks meeting space).
Cultural draws include the Lamb’s Players Theatre, San Diego’s third-largest professional theater; the Coronado Museum of History and Art; and Coronado Village Theatre, a newly refurbished Art Deco-style movie house.
Old Town/Mission Valley
Northwest of downtown is Old Town, site of the first European settlement of San Diego, which is now a state historic park containing some of the settlers’ first adobe buildings, and the Serra Museum, which also commemorates the Spanish settlement.
Walking tours are an easy way to see the sights, and energetic visitors can take advantage of a dedicated bike path that runs from a point near the meetings-friendly Crowne Plaza San Diego all the way west to Ocean Beach. The Town and Country Resort & Convention Center in Mission Valley is the area’s other major meetings hotel, and visitors will find no shortage of galleries and shops in the surrounding area.
La Jolla/Mission Bay
Mission Bay is synonymous with Sea World, possibly the West Coast’s most famous commercial attraction after Disneyland. Its killer whale and dolphin shows are among the world’s best, while other exhibits showcase Sea World’s penguins, turtles, sharks and related conservation efforts. Top meetings properties include Paradise Point Resort & Spa and Hyatt Regency Mission Bay Resort.
Continuing up to La Jolla, visitors fascinated by the ocean can also stop by the University of California-San Diego campus and the world-famous Scripps Institution of Oceanography, whose Birch Aquarium highlights the latest in ocean and climate science. The aquarium also runs twice-daily whale-watching cruises during the December–April high season, when roughly 20,000 gray whales pass by San Diego on their way from the Bering Sea to their breeding grounds in Mexico’s Gulf of California.
Lodgings in this area include the Estancia La Jolla Hotel & Spa, Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines, La Jolla Shores Hotel and the Lodge at Torrey Pines.
North San Diego County
The northern part of San Diego County includes a string of seaside cities that stretches all the way to the gates of the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base. Next to Torrey Pines State Preserve is Del Mar, an affluent community that offers numerous restaurants, shops, cafes and galleries in its compact, walkable downtown. Visitors can play the challenging Torrey Pines Golf Course or take in a race at Del Mar Racetrack, but it’s also easy to let the ocean take over and surf and beach-walk your way along the coast.
Meetings-friendly properties in the region include the Four Seasons Resort Aviara, The Grand Del Mar, La Costa Resort & Spa, L’Auberge Del Mar. Farther inland are Rancho Bernardo Inn and Pala Casino Spa Resort.
South San Diego County
South of San Diego are National City and Chula Vista. Pending Coastal Commission approval, Chula Vista’s 22 hotels and motels may soon be complemented by a 450-acre mixed-use development that includes a five-star resort hotel, 400,000-square-foot convention center and 250 acres of new bayfront parkland.
Lisa Cohen, CEO of the Chula Vista CVB, says Chula Vista promotes local attractions including a U.S. Olympic Training Center, the Cricket Wireless Amphitheatre, the interactive Chula Vista Nature Center and the city’s beautiful harbor and marina.
“We attract people looking for attractions and sports facilities,” she says. “We’re also on the bay so there are opportunities to do events on the water. Marathons have come through here, and CORR [Championship Off-Road Racing] races were held here for two years.”
East San Diego County
The eastern portion of San Diego County is where San Diegans go to enjoy some serious outdoor recreation, and large parts of it are taken up by preserved areas such as Anza-Borrego State Park, with roads and rugged trails that take you through a complete desert ecosystem, and Palomar Mountain State Park, site of the famed Palomar Observatory and the Hale Telescope, the world’s most powerful until 1992.
Top East County properties include Barona Valley Ranch Resort & Casino and the Sycuan Resort in El Cajon, which just completed extensive renovations.
Paul D. Kretkowski writes frequently about travel, food and sports. He is also the founder of Beacon, a blog about foreign policy.
