It’s the little things that count.
OC hoteliers have long gotten steady business from low-profile meetings and events for clients known in the industry as SMERFs—short for sports, military, educational, religious and fraternal organizations.
Some groups build decades-long relationships with local venues—a jewelers group has gathered annually at Island Hotel in Newport Beach for 21 years—and in recent months properties have made new efforts to attract the bread-and-butter business to the county in a systematic way.
Visit Anaheim, the destination marketing organization that promotes the cities of Anaheim and Garden Grove for business and leisure travel, has strategically isolated sports in particular to boost business.
It launched Sports Anaheim in March to attract amateur sports groups and events business, naming Roy Edmondson its vice president of sports development to lead the team.
“Anaheim is a sports town,” said Visit Anaheim Chief Executive Jay Burress at the time, referring to its professional hockey and baseball teams, noting “our expertise in developing and producing world-class sporting events.”
Such events in Anaheim have included regional rounds of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament and amateur gymnastics competitions.
“We’re starting to see sports as not just a side business, but it’s a driver” of economic impact, Burress said recently. He said expanding the business is a good idea because it’s “recession-proof,” meaning amateur groups hold tournaments and families follow their athletic kids to them in any type of economy.
He noted venues’ need for balance as they chase SMERFs. Hotels must seek a mix of cost-sensitive but flexible off-peak groups, such as SMERFs, and big-ticket but tough-to-land corporate business, he said.
Edmondson traveled to the Olympic Games this month to meet with amateur sports governing bodies about holding events in Anaheim or staking a West Coast presence in the city.
“We provided the [Amateur Athletic Union] office space at the [Anaheim] Convention Center this year, and we think other entities can relocate or add offices here, as well,” Burress said.
He compared the opportunity to Indianapolis and Colorado Springs, Colo., which are home to several such groups.
“It all starts with a visit.”
Puzzle Pieces
“SMERFs are a big deal in the hotel industry,” said Bruce Baltin, managing director of the CBRE Hotels consulting group in Los Angeles. “It’s a much-valued category of business.”
He said SMERFs fill shoulder seasons—think Palm Springs in summer when it’s fried-egg-on-a-sidewalk hot, or December travelers who help pick up the pace when corporate groups curtail bookings during the holidays.
He said SMERF meetings are good for 10% to 20% of meeting space at hotels, and “at times when they’re not otherwise full”—another assist to venues trying to maintain strong occupancies in an up market, he added.
“Groups fill the Monday through Thursday period at the resorts, which are already busy on the weekends, and they’ll take the weekend at full-service business hotels, which get [mostly] corporate groups during the week.”
SMERFs basically act as the puzzle pieces that complete a venue’s bookings schedule.
“Meeting planners and hotels know where [SMERFs] fit,” Baltin said, “and they work together on filling space.”
Balancing Act
SMERFs “generally have more flexibility,” agreed Linda DiMario, vice president of economic development and tourism at the Irvine Chamber of Commerce.
Some groups do need more structure—military events are “often specific about timeframes and expectations,” for instance.
SMERFs at the same time are “very rate sensitive, because in most cases they’re paying their own way” to events, she said.
DiMario said the term SMERF is as flexible as the groups that comprise it. She’s seen the S in the acronym stand for social as often as for sports and the E for ethnic, as well as education.
“It’s a composite. I can’t tell you the origin, but our industry loves acronyms. It’s basically groups and organizations not associated with companies.”
DiMario said some hotels call them “our little gifts” that fill out a week.
A hotel’s location and marketing plan dictates its relationship with the groups, she said. Those with strong corporate business “might not be compatible because of a higher room rate.”
Irvine is strong for business travel, so it sometimes needs less SMERF traffic, though “our larger hotels, during holidays for instance, are very eager to welcome the groups.”
A “midsized hotel with modest meeting space might even be able to fill midweek days” with SMERFs. A leisure-focused area—Anaheim, excluding convention business, for instance—also might pursue them more ardently.
She echoed Burress’ business-balance mantra.
“It’s a complex set of formulas.”
Catering To Tastes
Hotel Irvine relies on a mix of SMERF events to fill its various bookings holes.
“We do a lot with universities and amateur sports,” said Director of Sales and Marketing Joe Martino.
Professors from local colleges often hold department meetings at the hotel. Martino hosted sports groups attending Vans U.S. Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach in July, and “we get lacrosse teams” through the sport’s growth on the high school and college levels.
The hotel gets “30% to 35% of our business from the drive-in (corporate) market during the week,” leaving weekends for SMERFs.
“We get a lot of ethnic weddings,” he said, which often include overnight stays by families.
Other niche groups include:
• Restaurant industry executives and employee training when new OC locations open.
• Law firms, which use meeting rooms for depositions and the like.
• Product launches, such as by carmakers.
SMERFs make up a fair amount of food and beverage business at Hotel Irvine, “though the amateur sports teams tend to like our marketplace,” Martino said, referring to its grab-and-go grocery that sells local food items.
“They often want less-formal food offerings.”
It Got Religion
“SMERFs are definitely a big deal,” said Michael Robby, director of hotel sales at Renaissance ClubSport in Aliso Viejo.
He marked as particularly important for the property “youth sports and tournaments—soccer, softball, lacrosse, swimming, gymnastics.”
Weddings also are a big source of business.
“Families come in and stay overnight,” he said.
The Religious Conference Management Association in Indianapolis is a resource for marketing to faith-based events.
“Religious groups are huge for us.”
The category includes “couple’s retreats, men’s and women’s groups, and workshops. “They come, stay over a weekend,” and usually need food and beverage.
Some of the groups travel from the Inland Empire. “It’s a short drive, and they want to be in coastal Orange County.” But, echoing the cost focus many other hotel executives have noted, for groups that don’t want to pay for a Laguna or Newport Beach location, he said, “We’re close enough, and they can still get away to those places.”
One reason SMERFs are a bigger part of the Renaissance mix is that the meeting space, at 5,500 square feet, is relatively small, and the hotel has committed a much larger block of space—80,000 square feet—to a fitness club, which is part of its “unique positioning.” Robby said the center extends the hotel’s popularity with locals, though it can limit some of its corporate business.
It’s become a bigger blessing, he said, because, “The latest thing is a huge focus on wellness, creating some kind of activity—yoga, nutritionists, fitness boot camp—as part of that. It’s become a specialty because it’s what we were designed for.”
Robby said meeting planners “want people to get something out of an event … filling them with carbs and caffeine sends them down the rabbit hole three hours later. Now it’s fresh fruit and juices, not coffee and bread.”
Pull of Coastal Jewel
Corporate-focused hotels still value SMERF business.
Island Hotel Director of Sales and Marketing Kevin Sanford said, “we don’t do as much as most” for that reason, though SMERF groups do like the overlap of its location—steps from Fashion Island and a bike ride from the beach—with a resort-class business experience.
Sanford said the hotel hosts annual philanthropic galas, weddings and family reunions, continuing education for the legal and medical fields, and sometimes—in truly under-the-radar mode—military and defense contractors.
The hotel has hosted an annual confab of the Culver City-based Leading Jewelers Guild for 21 years.
The co-op of 48 independent, family-owned retail jewelers in the U.S., Canada and Scotland takes about 600 room nights each July. Attendees add room nights before and after the event to tour Orange County, he said.
“They’re a staple, and they fit a nice pattern at the hotel” year after year.
James West, the co-op’s executive director, said about 250 people—members, vendors and families—attend the confab, which combines educational events, social gatherings and a jewelry show.
“Manufacturers show their goods, and our retailer members make commitments to buy from them,” he said. “You leave that week in July with marketing and merchandising for your fourth quarter in place.”
He said half his members’ revenue comes during the holiday season at the end of the year, so the prep time is vital—and fun.
“Members tend to come with the entire family, hoping the kids will grow up in the business,” he said. “It’s easier to bring the whole family if you’re next to a beach resort and a beautiful mall instead of stuck in the middle of wherever at a business hotel.”
