Meetings and conferences in beach destinations mean attendees get to enjoy sand between their toes, sea breezes in their hair and salt water around their ankles. Oceanfront venues and on-the-beach activities inject meetings with a fresh vibe and give everyone there a fresh perspective.
Jacksonville, Florida
Much of downtown Jacksonville sits on the waterfront — not the ocean, but the St. Johns River. Fifteen miles east, however, are long, sandy stretches of Atlantic Ocean beaches, something locals sometimes have to remind visitors.
“When people think of Jacksonville, it’s often concentrated on the downtown area, and then the beaches are used as a daytrip,” said Patty Jimenez, leisure communications specialist for Visit Jacksonville. “We remind people you can meet [at the beach] and use downtown for a special trip.”
One Ocean Resort and Spa is the city’s largest beachfront venue. The 193-room hotel has 10,500 square feet of indoor and outdoor function space, including a 3,800-square-foot ballroom and a 1,600-square-foot, covered oceanfront patio. On-site event staff help with team-building activities, and the resort sits right next to the Beaches Town Center, a hub for shopping, dining and nightlife.
“You can walk right outside the hotel and be in the sand or go shopping and dining,” Jimenez said.
The 1925 Spanish-style Casa Marina hotel has 23 guest rooms, and groups can book the Penthouse Lounge overlooking the ocean or reserve the entire third floor for events. The SeaWalk Pavilion is an oceanfront plaza and amphitheater that can be rented for events, and Kathryn Abbey Hanna Park is a 450-acre park and public beach that has picnic shelters, bike trails and a freshwater lake for kayaking, canoeing, fishing and bird-watching. Coastal Fossil Adventures will lead groups on beach-combing tours to find shark teeth, and Kayak Amelia offers kayaking, paddleboarding and paddleboard yoga.
Wilmington, North Carolina
Wilmington, North Carolina, is home to three barrier-island beaches, each with its own personality. Wrightsville Beach is a contemporary beach town that’s home to many of the area’s resort hotels.
All of Shell Island Resort’s 140 guest suites front the ocean, and the hotel has 6,000 square feet of conference space, including an oceanfront ballroom. The Blockade Runner Resort straddles a narrow swath of island, so it fronts both the Intercoastal Waterway and the Atlantic Ocean. The resort’s largest meeting room is the 2,800-square foot Lee Ballroom, and groups can go kayaking or paddleboarding and take scenic boat tours. The Holiday Inn Resort has 8,400 square feet of meeting space and two terraces for sunrises and sunsets. Both Blockade and the Holiday Inn offer a distinctive local meal option: a “shrimparoo” shrimp feast.
Kure Beach has a small-town feel and few facilities, but Carolina Beach delivers a vintage vibe along with meeting venues. Shops, restaurants and bars, as well as a seaside amusement park, line the recently rebuilt wood-plank boardwalk, which is open year-round, although some stores close in the offseason.
“[Carolina Beach] preserves that feel of days gone by,” said Connie Nelson, communications/public relations director for the Wilmington and Beaches Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Marriott’s Courtyard Carolina Beach Oceanfront hotel has a 3,200-square-foot ballroom, and construction is underway on a new oceanfront Hampton Inn that will have about 100 guest rooms and 5,000 square feet of function space when it opens next summer.
