The Meetings Business

Trend-setting Southern California is out-of-step.

Most areas with a large population and big industries have private, for-profit conference centers. But not Los Angeles and San Diego.

Some Southern California hotels offer conference facilities, including meeting rooms, audio-visual equipment and marketing designed to attract groups of 300 or fewer. (If more than 300 people attend, the industry considers it a convention.) However, there are no private, non-hotel establishments in the Southland that meet the following specifications:

- On-site lodging with no more than 300 guest rooms.

- Meeting space dedicated solely to business gatherings and conferences.

- Dependence on conferences and business meetings for at least 60% of revenue.

Those criteria are used by the International Assn. of Conference Centers--a coalition of about 200 facilities in the United States and abroad--to define conference centers.

“I’m surprised there aren’t any conference centers in Southern California,” said John Wilderman, president of the association and head of Breckinridge Corp., a St. Louis-based developer of conference centers.

Conference centers, Wilderman noted, were first developed in the East and now can be found in the Midwest. However, trends “normally start on a coast, leapfrog the Midwest and land on the other coast,” said Wilderman, who views Los Angeles as a ripe market for development of conference centers.

To those who organize business meetings for a living, there’s no such thing as an unimportant detail.

“It’s the minutiae that get you every time if you’re not careful,” said Susan Butler, head of La Mirada-based Butler Associates, which specializes in setting up meetings and conferences.

Take the size of drinking glasses, for example. That might not seem an important detail, but if the client is on a tight budget, using the right size is a matter of dollars and good sense.

“You need the size to know how much orange juice to order,” Butler explained.

To remember the small tasks--conference planners say minor details do not exist--Butler makes lists and puts them in her computer.

The lists may refer to the need to confirm the food selection with caterers and a note prompting Butler to confirm details on how luncheon tickets will be collected. In addition, there are messages that note that audio visual equipment, pencils, rubber bands and paper clips must be taken to the conference site.

However, a conference eve’s list noting items that must taken to the meeting site is not enough. Butler reviews her “put into car” list, a memory jogger filled with items from other lists and more--all of the material things that must be loaded into the automobile for the trip.

It’s the day of the conference, and Butler has an early morning list. She is to rise at 4 a.m., check the standing exhibits at 6 a.m. and examine the conference rooms and banquet room at 7:30 a.m.

“The good thing about owning your business is that you may have to work 60-hour weeks, but you work the 60 hours that you want to work,” Butler said.

Armed with flexible rates and discounts, aggressive marketing and--in some cases--recently constructed meeting rooms, the Southland hotel industry is preparing to fend off competitors for its conference business.

Some hotel managers bristle at the notion that the expected arrival of new conference centers will raid their business.

“There’s no way (conference centers) can be as attractive as a hotel,” said Dennis Clarke, general manager of the Beverly Hilton.

To help attract conferences and other business gatherings, Clarke’s hotel last year completed development on 12 new meeting rooms.

The Century Plaza, considered the chief rival of the Beverly Hilton for business meetings, offers specially designed facilities to smaller conference groups: a tower with five meeting rooms and a ballroom--a complex completed in 1985.

The demand for smaller, specially designed rooms has prompted the Westin Bonaventure downtown to consider new construction, according to General Manager David Ling.

Executives at hotels near the Los Angeles International Airport say they also are aggressively seeking business conferences. For example, the Stouffer Concourse Hotel is promoting its Conference Express program, a service that offers to set up a conference on just two hours’ notice, according to Robin Hooks, marketing director.

The chase for more conferences and business meetings is luring new business to the Los Angeles area, according to Penny Standerfer, sales director for the Amfac hotel.

“Since there are more people coming, we’re all getting more business,” she said.