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Meeting In Eden
Why meeting planners, and their clients, are falling in love with Naples, Marco Island and the Everglades.By Joanna Hogan
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The sunny locale is also taking its place among the country¹s top destinations for conventions and company events. Meeting and seminar planners have discovered that Naples, Marco Island and Everglades City, all in Collier County, now offer some of the nation¹s most attractive hotel-based conference facilities at resorts eager to meet their needs. And convention guests, from CEOs and corporate executives to public officials, enjoy gaining knowledge and professional contacts in a relaxed, tropical setting. The bottom line? Meetings in paradise make business sense when they improve creativity, productivity and everybody’s morale.
Long known for its stunning natural beauty and abundance of golf courses, greater Naples has developed a reputation for sophistication and glamour in recent years. An influx of affluent new residents, among them sports stars and Fortune 500 CEOs, has spurred the growth of cultural attractions, fine dining and shopping.
“Naples is not a sleepy place strictly for retired people,” emphasizes Debi DeBenedetto, sales and marketing manager of the Greater Naples, Marco Island, Everglades Convention & Visitors Bureau. “Our population has gotten younger and it’s a very trendy place.” That means planners can choose from a variety of hotels and venues offering top-drawer amenities and services suitable for groups from small seminars to large conventions. The not-for-profit CVB is an information clearinghouse with an abundance of contacts. “We’ll match a meeting planner’s needs with a hotel or venue that can fill those needs,” says DeBenedetto. It could be an attraction, a restaurant or a hotel.” The CVB also works with groups to plan events, from small parties to ambitious extravaganzas. They’ve even helped groups that decided to stage fund-raisers, from choosing a theme to a local charity as the recipient.
The South Florida Meeting Professionals International of Miami recently chose the Naples area over the Florida Keys, Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach for its August 2004 conference. The annual three-day, three-night event will host more than 250 meeting and event professionals from the Southeast. What convinced the meeting experts to hold their meeting here? The CVB's expertise and work ethic, says Lauren Halpern, a certified meeting planner and vice president of administration for South Florida Meeting Professionals International. “The CVB works hard to fulfill the demand of every meeting proposal,” she says. “The CVB put together a beautiful presentation.”
Halpern and other convention experts agree that the spectacular Southwest Florida setting adds to every event’s appeal. Guests can enjoy miles of uninterrupted beaches, spas galore, fine dining, lively arts, golf, boating, fishing, museums and galleries. Plus all sorts of special attractions and world-class shopping are along downtown’s fabled Fifth Avenue South and Third Street South and in the eclectic antiques district at Central Avenue and 10th Street. “Naples is a terrific find. It has great amenities. Once you work it as a planner, you go back. And there’s plenty to do, so you can go back and repeat a program,” Halpern says.
In the last several years, the region has added a number of world-class facilities, such as LaPlaya Beach & Golf Resort, the Hilton Naples and The Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort, Naples. These are in addition to well-established resorts such as The Ritz-Carlton, Naples Beach Resort, Naples Beach Hotel & Golf Club and Naples Grande Resort & Club. Today, accommodations range from grand hotels with expansive gathering spaces to cozy inns and resorts with tropical courtyards and beachy charm.
As every meeting planner knows, top hotels attract top conventions, and the presence of hotels such as The Ritz-Carlton, with its two Naples resorts, has helped to spur the growth of convention business here. “We have an outstanding relationship with the Ritz-Carlton worldwide, but we’ve been to The Ritz in Naples more than anywhere else,” says Jeff Watts, director of programs that recognize outstanding General Motors dealers. He brings in 200 to 300 dealers at a time for four-day spring sessions. Watts schedules business meetings for his dealers in the mornings, then fills their afternoons with golf, sailing, backwater fishing and catamaran rides to catch sunsets or to enjoy island shelling. “The experience always provides a lasting impression,” he says. The Ritz-Carlton chain recently added a second Naples Ritz-Carlton, a golf resort with its own meeting and conference facilities.
Only one half-hour from downtown Naples, nearly four miles of crescent-shaped, white sand beach envelops tropical Marco Island. Top facilities and accommodations help make Marco a prime place to mix business and pleasure. Visitors can enjoy sunset sailing trips, shelling excursions to deserted outer islands and, perhaps, team building exercises on the wide stretch of sandy shoreline.
Collier County’s largest meeting and conference center, at 60,000 square feet, is at the Marco Island Marriott Resort, Golf Club & Spa. And it’s improving. Marriott has recently emerged from over $80 million in upgrades and new construction, including a 24,000-square-foot spa that opened in December 2003. The Balinese-themed facility offers treatment suites that have outdoor private balconies overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. “As a result we’re getting a tremendous amount of business we wouldn’t have received,” explains Bob Pfeffer, director of sales and marketing.
Convention activity is not limited to the glitzy corners of Collier County. The lush, wet world of the Everglades is within easy reach of hotels in Naples and Marco Island. Visitors find the wilderness area perfect for half and full-day excursions, including nature boardwalks, airboat rides and boat tours of Everglades National Park’s mangrove estuaries. Alligators, dolphin, manatee and an array of wading birds are among the favorite wildlife sightings. There’s also a selection of eclectic restaurants serving seafood and stone crab claws in season (October Through May) fresh from the boat.
The Ivey House Inn is newly expanded with a screened-in pool and restaurant, which can be used for group activities. The staff here operates Everglades Eco Adventures and can put together group team-building or social activities including kayak and canoe trips and driving tours into Big Cypress National Preserve. “We’re just beginning to generate convention business,” says Sandee Harraden, whose husband, David, owns the Ivey House. “We now have the facilities to accommodate that business.”
For betting types, there’s the Seminole Casino in Immokalee, a small community situated among citrus groves and produce farms, about 45 minutes from Naples. Visitors can try their luck at video gaming and poker and dine in the Seminole-themed restaurant. Certain gaming areas can be converted to meeting space, says Carol LosaDelara, director of marketing.
The Naples area is growing in international cachet, says Saba Tours’ Giovanna Puccia, who manages three- to four-week stays at the Hilton Naples and Towers from September through July. “People from the United Kingdom absolutely love it. It’s a territory that’s quite different for them, and they find it fascinating,” Puccia says. "But as more convention attendees experience Collier County, the secret is getting out", says Kerry Mitruska, director of sales and marketing at The Registry Resort & Club, which also recently underwent a major expansion and renovation. “Consider a 300- to 400-person incentive group plus spouses. All of them going home raving about the destination creates all sorts of spin-offs,” he says.
At least a dozen off-site locations showcase theater, the arts, nature, history, adventure or gambling, and planners are adept at using these attractions to spice up events. At Naples Zoo at Caribbean Gardens, guests can enjoy a lavish dinner set amid a tropical jungle and exotic animals. Then there’s Naples’ famed Philharmonic Center for the Arts, one of the most beautiful performing arts centers in the country, where groups often dine elegantly on the stage; occasionally they’ve been surprised there by the arrival of a celebrity performer or even the elusive Phantom. Such over-the-top attractions are a major plus for pleasing those who “are used to being wowed,” says Ontario-based freelance trip director Ann Clarke. She manages meetings and programs for incentive companies, which develop programs to reward top-performing employees. For one such group, Clarke wanted “a top-of-the-line event,” and chose Ngala, a wildlife reserve on 35 acres about 30 minutes from Naples. “It was a fabulous night in Africa with trainers with chimpanzees, leopards and more,” she says. The guests dined under elegant, African colonial-style tents, surrounded by animals and artifacts. Her hard-to-impress guests indeed were “wowed,” she says. Rochelle Ferguson, a California-based meeting planner with Creative Connections, agrees. She arranges meetings, golf tournaments, spa days and special events nationwide. “I can go any place in the nation and I want the experience to be memorable. I would go back in a New York minute,” she says of the Naples area.
The increased convention business has prompted a number of longtime Naples facilities to expand, among them the Naples Beach Hotel & Golf Club, which offered 12,000 square feet of meeting space when it opened in 1946. In 2000, the resort completed a new, 22,000-square-foot conference center and spa on the edge of its 18-hole golf course. Now 50 percent of the hotel¹s business is in meetings and conventions, says Bob Loughran, director of sales and marketing. “The group meeting market is a segment that is growing,” he says. The Marriott on Marco recently finished remodeling its 727 guest rooms and suites. “Our future is incredibly bright,” says the Marriott’s Pfeffer. The Marriott’s sheer size can attract major conventions, as well as smaller events. And if it is booked, there are other hotels nearby to handle the overflow. For example, the Hilton Marco Island is a four-diamond property with oversized guest rooms, a tropical pool and meeting facilities perfect for small to mid-sized group meetings. Olde Marco Island Inn & Suites offers beautifully decorated one- and two-bedroom suites; a popular restaurant in the original inn dates to 1883. The Radisson Suite Beach Resort offers one-, two- and three-bedroom suites, perfect for attendees. And Marco Beach Ocean Resort is an all-suite hotel with recently expanded meeting facilities. It offers upscale Italian dining at Sale e Pepe overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, and five-star service throughout the hotel.
In addition to a wealth of meeting space, accommodations and special activities, the area provides excellent transportation and easy access to convention sites. Most off-site activities are less than 20 minutes away. U.S. 41 (also called the Tamiami Trail) and Interstate 75 are the main corridors. The Interstate also heads to Florida’s east coast through the Everglades along Alligator Alley. Naples Municipal Airport, where dozens of private jets and Delta Connection jets land daily, is minutes from the city’s downtown. Commuter service on Cape Air in the winter season. Marco Island Executive Airport and Immokalee Regional Airport have jet-sized runways and are convenient to Naples, Marco Island and the Everglades. Everglades Airpark provides general aviation access to Everglades City.
Most importantly, Southwest Florida International Airport (RSW) in Fort Myers is within easy reach via I-75. Various types of transportation, from shuttle buses to limos, whisk visitors to the Naples area from the airport, which recently expanded witht the opening of the new midfield terminal in 2005. “We have many non-stop flights and a few new airlines including Southwest Airlines,” says DeBenedetto.
And that makes it even easier for meeting planners to choose Southwest Florida. “Naples ranks as one of the top locations in the world as far as bringing in premier meetings,” agrees Scott Hamilton, director of sales and marketing at LaPlaya Beach & Golf Resort. “People worldwide now know the area, and the address of Naples is an attraction in and of itself.”
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