While often associated with urban sprawl and traffic-clogged freeways, Los Angeles County is largely comprised of communities that are pedestrian-friendly and filled with neighborhood charm. This is especially true of the Westside and Beach Cities, where places such as Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Long Beach and Marina del Rey are cohesive meetings destinations, each with a distinctive atmosphere all its own.
Proximity to LAX and Long Beach International Airport is a major asset offered by the Westside and Beach Cities, according to Darren Green, senior vice president of sales for the Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board.
“People don’t realize how close the beach cities are to the airport—it’s often just 10 minutes away,” he said. “Furthermore, LAX itself is a great meeting destination, with hotels there offering attractive packages and availability.”
At the same time, the expanding Metro light-rail system, which began service between downtown L.A. and Santa Monica last year, is upping the convenience factor of basing a meeting near the beach, Green noted.
Beverly Hills
Although its image exudes exclusivity, Beverly Hills is a welcoming place for meetings, and is dedicated to helping planners create unique experiences for their attendees, according to Julie Wagner, CEO of the Beverly Hills Conference & Visitors Bureau. She urges planners who are basing a meeting in Beverly Hills to take advantage of the services her office provides.
“We’re not a membership organization, but a city entity, which means that we can cut through the red tape to facilitate street closures and other special perks for groups,” she said. “If the meeting is based in Beverly Hills, we can also help planners arrange experiences throughout greater Los Angeles, whether it’s attending a Clippers game or a studio tour.”
Within Beverly Hills itself, there is an array of experiences available, including closing down the cobbled walkway of Two Rodeo for a gala reception or giving attendees private after-hours access to stores such as Versace, Lanvin and Jimmy Choo, Wagner added.
“We’ve taken over Neiman Marcus at night for a fashion show and held elegant dinner parties in a mansion with a celebrity chef,” she said. “Based on the needs of the group, the possibilities are endless.”
Among the city’s major assets for groups is its concentration of restaurants, stores and meetings-friendly hotels, including the Four Seasons Los Angeles at Beverly Hills, The Peninsula Beverly Hills, Beverly Hilton, The Beverly Hills Hotel and Beverly Wilshire Hotel, within a compact area, she added.
“The fact that our hotels are so close together means that we can easily handle large groups of 1,500 or 2,000,” Wagner said. “There’s no need for cars or buses.”
The city’s newest hotel, the 170-room Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills, the first in the Los Angeles area under Hilton Worldwide’s luxury Waldorf Astoria brand, is a new option for high-end incentive groups, she added. Located next to the Beverly Hilton, it will also enable larger meetings to provide a top-tier option for senior executives.
While lacking a convention center, Beverly Hills offers such venue alternatives as the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, which provides two theaters and an outdoor garden available for events. The elegant Greystone Mansion & Gardens is another choice, a 1920s estate with indoor and outdoor event spaces for up to 300 guests.
Santa Monica
With its prime beachfront location, historic amusement pier and pedestrian-only Third Street Promenade lined with myriad shopping and dining options, Santa Monica has long been a magnet for meetings, especially in creative areas such as fashion and advertising, according to Kim Sidoriak, chief marketing officer for Santa Monica Travel & Tourism.
“We’re really the beachfront for L.A., ideal for creative retreats where you don’t want to be stuck in a ballroom all day,” she said. “You can focus on health and wellness here. We offer the ability to walk from your hotel to everything. You don’t need a car when you’re here.”
Sidoriak noted that group business is continually expanding, some of it driven by the burgeoning number of start-ups in the area, often called Silicon Beach. Another positive factor is the completion last year of the Metro Expo light-rail line that connects Santa Monica with Downtown L.A. and points in between.
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“Light-rail access has been a real game-changer for us,” she said. “Now we have a car-free connection to L.A. Live, Staples Center, the Coliseum. If you’re attending a Downtown convention, you now have a convenient option of staying at the beach.”
Another asset is Santa Monica’s hotel inventory of over 3,500 hotel rooms that include high-style boutique properties and deluxe meetings-friendly resorts such as Loews Santa Monica, Shutters on the Beach, Hotel Shangri-La at the Ocean, Casa Del Mar, JW Marriott Santa Monica Le Merigot and Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows. Last year saw the opening of Courtyard by Marriott and Hampton Inn properties, both across from the new light-rail terminal.
While the sweet spot for meetings in Santa Monica is groups of around 200, Sidoriak noted that the city plays host each year to the American Film Market, which takes over Loews Santa Monica for its tradeshow and draws 7,000 international film distributors to the city.
Activities and off-site venues abound in the city, most famously the Santa Monica Pier, where Pacific Park amusement park offers numerous event opportunities for groups. Another popular option is the Annenberg Community Beach House, a historic property built by William Randolph Hearst, which offers indoor and outdoor function spaces and teambuilding opportunities on the beach.
Beach Cities
Just south of Santa Monica, beachside communities such as Marina del Rey, Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach also offer attractive hotel and venue options for groups.
According to Lawrence Stafford, business development manager for the Marina del Rey CVB, Marina del Rey, where meetings-friendly hotels include The Ritz-Carlton, Marina del Rey Marriott, Hilton Garden Inn and Jamaica Bay Inn, is a sought-after destination for high-end corporate business where rates are often more affordable than in Beverly Hills and Santa Monica.
“Marina del Rey is a waterfront playground where traditional meetings take a back seat thanks to unique venues and exclusive on-the-water activities,” he said.
Among the many off-site options for groups in Marina del Rey are sunset cocktail receptions aboard a harbor cruise, meetings at a private yacht club or onboard a yacht, and rooftop events with sweeping views of the Pacific and Greater Los Angeles. Teambuilding and recreational activities include parasailing, kayaking, paddleboarding, whale-watching, biking and summer outdoor concerts.
Long Beach
California’s seventh-largest city, Long Beach is a dynamic meetings destination that has continually raised its profile over the years with iconic waterfront attractions and imaginative event spaces at the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center, site of the annual TED conference from 2008 to 2013. According to Steve Goodling, president and CEO of the Long Beach CVB, adapting infrastructure to meet the demands of the innovative TED conference has had lasting impact on how the city serves groups.
“TED wanted a conference that gives people a way to collaborate and connect—when the retreat is over the people you meet become almost like family,” he said. “This prompted us to make a sizeable investment on ways to encourage networking and create memorable events that are social media-driven. As a result, we’ve booked over $120 million in new convention business.”
Key to this success has been a reimagined Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center, which now includes the Pacific Room, a flexible space with mood-enhancing design elements and a state-of-the-art moveable ceiling truss system with thousands of LED lights that can be raised or lowered to event specifications.
“It’s a spectacular event space that can be whatever you want it to be—we’ve hosted everything from English-style garden parties to high-tech events,” Goodling said. “It’s a turnkey space with lighting, sound and truss systems that would otherwise cost a fortune to re-create.”
Other innovations included the Promenade Atrium & Plaza, an indoor/outdoor space lined with LED-lighted palm trees and lounge seating that is used for receptions, buffet dinners, music performances and even classic car events. There is also Top of the Lot, a space on the roof of a parking structure with 360-degree city views that is a blank canvas for events for up to 9,700 people.
Set to debut this summer, The Cove will transform a street underpass beneath the convention center into an event space with LED-lit chandeliers and aquatic design elements such as barnacles and starfish adorning the ceiling, walls and pillars.
“This was a space in which TED had closed off the street, hung chandeliers from the overpass and brought in food trucks,” Goodling said. “It was a real oxymoron of crystal and cement in the same space. What we’ve done is carry the concept further and created a permanent venue.”
The convention center is part of a downtown waterfront area that includes the Aquarium of the Pacific, Rainbow Harbor Esplanade, over 120 restaurants and hotels such as the Hyatt Regency Long Beach, Westin Long Beach, Hotel Maya and the Queen Mary, a former transatlantic ocean liner converted to a 340-room hotel. Developers are currently seeking approval for Queen Mary Island, a $250 million entertainment complex adjacent to the Queen Mary that would include a hotel, amphitheater, shops, restaurants and an activity center offering ziplining, trampolines, simulated skydiving and other experiences.
