Resort group hypes county’s coastline

Andrew Edwards

Four Newport Beach hotels have joined neighboring resorts in a

cooperative venture designed to highlight the Orange County coastline

as a luxury destination.

The hotels, 10 in all, are part of a new group dubbed “The

OCeanfront.” Promotional activities started last week with a mass

mailing that targeted 75,000 travelers.

“They’re just hitting the ground right now,” said Cormac

O’Modhrain, general manager of the Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach

Resort & Spa. Hoteliers and other participants in The OCeanfront

credited O’Modhrain with spearheading the idea.

The Newport hotels participating in the group are the Balboa Bay

Club & Resort, the Four Seasons Hotel Newport Beach, the Hyatt

Regency Newport Beach and the Marriott Newport Beach Hotel & Spa.

Newport Beach has more OCeanfront hotels than any other city with

participating resorts. The group includes two hotels each from

Huntington Beach, Laguna Beach and Dana Point.

O’Modhrain, who described the project as a destination-marketing

initiative, said the promotion has been in the works for about 18

months.

In addition to the mailers, OCeanfront hotels have also set up a

website designed with a system making it possible for vacationers to

book rooms at any hotel in the group. However, hoteliers are taking

it slowly when it comes to planning future promotions.

“We would love to think this would be a global success overnight,

but we think it would be better to be strategic,” O’Modhrain said.

O’Modhrain said he thought Orange County’s beach cities had been

overlooked as vacation destinations when he started thinking about

the project. George Lysak, executive director of sales and marketing

at the Balboa Bay Club & Resort, had a similar view.

“When you think of Orange County, in many cases, you think of

Anaheim,” Lysak said. “You don’t realize what really is here and the

caliber of hotel that’s in Orange County.”

The extent of cooperation within the OCeanfront group is to

advertise the coastal region, hoteliers said.

“The advantage is bringing the identity and destination to the

forefront of everyone’s mind,” said Rhanda Richardson, sales and

marketing manager for the Marriott Newport Beach Resort & Spa.

The formation of The OCeanfront comes on the heels of recent surge

in resort construction and renovations along the county’s beaches.

The Balboa Bay Club & Resort opened its public hotel in 2003. Another

participating resort, Laguna Beach’s Montage Resort & Spa, opened

that same year.

Earlier this year, the Four Seasons Hotel Newport Beach and Hyatt

Regency Newport Beach announced the completions of multi-million

dollar renovation projects. The Marriott Newport Beach is in the

midst of a $65-million renovation effort.

“From where we sit, the coast has grown up really nicely,” Irvine

Co. spokeswoman Jennifer Hieger said. The Irvine Co. owns the Four

Seasons Hotel Newport Beach as well as nearby Fashion Island and the

Pelican Hill Golf Club in Newport Coast, which are also highlighted

in OCeanfront advertising.

And OCeanfront advertising calls attention to Costa Mesa’s South

Coast Plaza. Werner Escher, the shopping center’s executive director

for domestic and international markets, said shopping was the top

activity for leisure travelers and that the mall’s high-end stores

could tap into the same target demographic as luxury hotels.

“We are occupying a significant niche in that marketplace,” Escher

said.

The Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel is the only Orange County resort

that declined to join the OCeanfront, O’Modhrain said. In an e-mail,

hotel spokeswoman Deanne French stated the resort was concentrating

all its energies on marketing its renovation project.

O’Modhrain said he has noticed Orange County has enjoyed a recent

spike of awareness in the public consciousness, a trend he partly

attributed to the Fox Network soap opera “The OC.” He said he hoped

the OCeanfront would continue to establish the local coast as a

separate destination from Los Angeles.

“We are doing everything we can to propagate that rumor,” he said.

* ANDREW EDWARDS covers business and the environment. He can be

reached at (714) 966-4624 or by e-mail at andrew.edwards@latimes.com.