Event trends and popular movements in meetings and conventions can seem to appear out of nowhere—whether it’s rooftop amenities (see page 1),
pop-up events (see page 21), or growth in spa, health, and fitness components (see page 19).
The reality is that a lot of active hard work on the part of venue executives goes into creating experiences that draw guests,
including big groups that they woo in hopes of establishing long-term relationships.
The Business Journal’s Paul Hughes asked some locally based executives how they landed big events for this year and
why they pursued certain groups, including whether they added elements for that purpose.
Here are edited excerpts of their responses:
Scott Blakeslee
General Manager
Paséa Hotel & Spa, Huntington Beach
Paséa will host the 2017 WSL Big Wave Awards Show. The event celebrates the world’s best surfers’ achievements for the current season.
Accolades and awards go to those who have contributed to the sport, including The Billabong Ride of the Year, XXL Biggest Wave and awards in the men’s and women’s divisions for overall performance.
Last year, they held the gala at an inland venue, not a hotel, and we actually secured this business walking around in hard hats with members of the World Surf League while Paséa was under construction—it was still concrete and steel. They toured the property, and we brainstormed about hosting this epic event, one of the most influential awards shows for the surf industry, and everything else possible between us as natural partners, and I said, this is Surf City, and this is exactly where you need to have it.
Sam el-Rabaa
General Manager
Balboa Bay Resort, Newport Beach
We’re always looking for new events to hold, new groups, new markets. The focus this year is capturing business with the yacht. Balboa Bay got access to a yacht starting in May of last year—we rent it from a local owner when we need it for the events.
The events run 50 to 150 people, and most of the revenue is food and beverage. No other resort has this. So now we’re starting to really promote and use it. We seem to have had some success with professional and those kinds of groups—law organizations, insurance. One group is having the opening night of their sales meeting on the yacht; another is using it for a closing dinner during their annual retreat. We attracted the second group because it wants sunny, tropical places; last year they went to Hawaii.
The events are 70 to 80 people each. We pitch the space as suitable for about anything: cocktail receptions, off-site team-building. You can get a spa treatment and yoga on it, and it can stay docked or sail.
We sell yacht events pretty well when prospective clients visit—we say have a ‘meeting in the marina’ on a floating event space. The yacht isn’t moored here, but we make sure it’s always there when we know a tour is coming. We always end up on the yacht at the end.
Casey Graves
General Manager
Inn at Laguna Beach, Laguna Beach
We’ve focused recently on employee events: retreats, sales kickoff meetings and incentive travel. Think of anything a company might need to do, such as training or team-building, or want to do, such as rewarding performance, for employees.
We like to present the property as this ideal location for inspiration and getting away but still where a company can tap contemporary group activities. We’re a few steps from Main Beach. The rooms have stunning ocean views, and at the same time, Laguna has top contemporary restaurants, an arts community, and so on. The combinations are almost endless.
We’re also keying into a desire for greater fitness components, so that’s a hike in the canyons, yoga by the pool, or a tour of the tide pools. All this gets placed in the context of the right technology for the work of an event—audio-visual needs, let’s say.
We can meet the needs of an event, be creative, and as a boutique hotel offer experiences a larger urban property can’t. Most groups are around 30 to 70 overnight guests.
Stephanie Macias
Destination Sales Executive
Irvine Marriott, Irvine
We’re getting a lot of sales kickoff meetings and product launches, which can be in several industries—automotive, sports or lifestyle, fashion, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. We are working on bringing a local apparel company to the property this summer.
They’re drawn by the outdoor spaces, which we can do a lot with here. For instance, a renovation—we call it transformation—concluded recently after about three years and $22 million. The last part of the project remade our driveway. It’s all-new, with a waterfall and a lot of space. It’s where companies can set the stage and tone for their programs. There’s space on which to project video, images and lighting for meetings guests as they arrive. The lighting and video work can continue in subtle ways through the hotel—patio, pool, restaurants, and meeting spaces.
The hotel provides a ‘studio’ where planners can create events with purpose and impact. We look at the hotel as a platform for a client’s physical presence. We intentionally designed the guest experience, and they can do the same with their event, so it’s not ‘cookie-cutter’ but rather new and inventive. This produces exceptional experiences, and great stories and memories for everyone.
Rocco Mastrangelo
Director of Sales
Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel, Dana Point
A key to our success has been in financial and insurance markets and working with these companies from across the United States.
We nurture relationships by hosting top accounts that work with the global Ritz-Carlton brand on familiarization tours and other events. This captures additional business from these segments. Multiwave programs—meetings and events that extend over a series of arrivals and departures by members of the group—build ongoing strong connections over several years with these customers.
The success is really the relationships our tenured sales team—many have more than 10 years here—spent forming and fostering friendships and professional bonds. They’ve built a rapport through long effort and cultivated these types of high-level clients and programs. At that point, it’s up to the rest of our Ladies and Gentleman—on-site employees—to continue to provide legendary service.
Sheena Mehta
Catering Sales Manager
Westin South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa
Westin South Coast Plaza is stepping up pursuit of ethnic weddings that produce many room nights, especially the elaborate Indian weddings that unfold over several consecutive days at the hotel and can top more than $100,000, all in.
Earning the respect of wedding planners who specialize in Indian nuptials is critical to acquiring the business. I’m of Indian descent and know these colorful weddings showcase traditions and practices that are centuries old, yet nuanced for a younger generation not as familiar with the rituals. Understanding the culture and language goes a long way towards mollifying any anxieties the wedding couple and their families may have.
The weddings often produce ample food, bar, and beverage business for the hotel, with breakfast, lunch and dinner service often required to mark aspects of the event in-house or using local caterers specializing in Indian delicacies. Everything from the creamy curries to the festive Gulab Jamun desserts are delicious and authentic.
These weddings also can generate corporate business from overseas wedding guests who are impressed with the hotel and are looking for meeting space for their businesses.
Does it work? Recently an Indian Embassy representative attended an Indian wedding at the Westin and then booked an event.
John Philipp
Director of Sales and Marketing
Wyndham Anaheim Garden Grove, Garden Grove
Wyndham Anaheim Garden Grove began to pursue international airline crew business in 2016-2017. International air carriers are looking outside the LAX area to place their crews, as the layovers are multiple days and they want to be in locations where there are entertainment and shopping options near the hotel.
We’ve been fortunate to have airline crews in 2016 and will do so throughout 2017. A big part of this business is the arrival and departure patterns for crews. This is critical, as it will play a large part in determining if the business will be profitable for the hotel. How does this business flow during the year and on a particular day? Crews with arrival or departure times early in the morning or late in the evening will not allow us enough time to clean and sell the rooms again—leaving them empty and not generating revenue.
We currently have an international crew with multiple daily flights in and out of LAX, and their arrival and departure patterns at the hotel are such that rooms we can’t sell for this reason are minimal.
The mix of this segment with our other efforts is crucial. Having this base business with airline crews can let us be more aggressive at certain times in pursuing other market segments—group business (corporate and associations), tour and travel business, and business travel. A hotel wants room inventory for those groups, as well.
Alex Shotwell
Director of Sales and Marketing
Anaheim Marriott, Anaheim
We hired an affinity manager—a sales manager that focuses on SMERFs meetings business. The term refers to the sports, military, educational, religious, or fraternal groups. The S can also mean ‘social,’ but we’re focused on it for the sporting aspect, and we’ve booked three events in the last three months related to sports groups coming to Anaheim.
So far, we’ve booked about 2,000 rooms, mostly in team and family travel related to the events. We’re just getting started on this. The bookings have come through Sports Anaheim, which is part of Visit Anaheim, the destination group that markets the city. Visit Anaheim started that last year, and we’ve gotten on-board, met with clients through it, and so on. This month we participated in one of their events and met with sports event planners and organizers. The next thing as we get going on getting sports groups here is that Marriott has salespeople in the field, representatives at meetings for big groups, and some of our hotel brands are official sponsors of the NFL. This can bring business.
As we build this up, we’re doing our own marketing for this property directly, and the affinity manager goes and books groups on that. We also hired a director of catering sales last year for the local market to book awards dinners at the end of sports seasons.
Jim Tolbert
Director of Sales and Marketing
Ranch at Laguna Beach, Laguna Beach
We’re hosting the Surf Industry Manufacturers Association Watermen’s Ball in August. It’s their big event—like the Academy Awards for surf products and apparel makers and a fundraiser for several charities—with about 400 people. It had previously been held at other resorts in South OC.
SIMA has held board meetings at the Ranch, and Mark Christy, principal owner of the property, is deeply involved in the industry—surf industry product pioneer Hobie Alter was Mark’s mentor—and in Laguna Beach. So there are some connections.
Our property’s renovation was completed in November. We’ve been open but still doing work, so to get something like this is a pretty big deal for us. They have the various meetings here, but those move around, and now we have an opportunity to host their big event.
We have a lot of great resorts out here. We’re a block south of the Montage, but the Ranch has always been a local secret place. SIMA likes the vibe out here; the surf industry is wealthy but laid-back. Our property has 97 rooms, but we’re on 87 acres. We kind of exude a “live like a local” feeling, and particularly so back in our canyon, these huge steep walls that rise a thousand feet quicker than any mountain in Southern California.
We’ve got a 9-hole golf course—Hobie used to play it—and it’s carved into the base of those canyon walls. You’re not going to hit into somebody’s backyard. Sometimes you can see deer on the course. A lot of surfers are golfers, so that fits the group, also. We’ll do the event on a fairway.
