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| Home Media MEETING NEWS FROM THE ST. PETERSBURG/CLEARWATER AREA Long known as an ideal leisure destination, more and more meeting planners are finding out just what The St. Petersburg/Clearwater area has to offer. There are a wide variety of reasons why this trend is continuing. The City of Clearwater’s Harborview Center, opened in 1996, sits on a beautiful bluff overlooking Clearwater Bay and offers a 30,000 square foot exhibit hall on the first floor and 35,000 square feet of meeting space on the upper level. The facility boasts a deli and a retail shop. Other area facilities include Tropicana Field - home to Major League Baseball’s Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Bayfront Center, St. Petersburg Coliseum, Ruth Eckerd Hall and 46 properties offering meeting space and professional staffing assistance. To assist with this growing demand, the St. Petersburg/Clearwater Area Convention & Visitors Bureau has four sales personnel who focus on the meetings market. The CVB also offers a full-service meetings services department and can assist the meeting planner with almost every aspect of putting on a conference. The market has also recently seen major renovations at several area meeting properties with upgrades to both the technical equipment as well as to improvements to the comforts of the delegates. Many of the qualities that make the St. Petersburg/Clearwater area the leading leisure destination on Florida’s Gulf coast are facilitating the rise in meeting business for the area. "First and foremost, there are not many destinations that can offer three of the top beaches in the entire United States with the variety of other amenities the St. Petersburg/Clearwater Area has," said Carole Ketterhagen, executive director of the CVB. "There is wonderful weather, just about every water activity imaginable including excellent boating and fishing, fine dining and shopping, championship golf and tennis, terrific sites for off-property functions including a number of world-class museums and other attractions and a hospitality industry that makes delegates feel welcome and appreciated," Ketterhagen added. "In addition to professional hockey and football, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays play in St. Petersburg giving planners another wonderful event to work into an itinerary." Perhaps no other destination in Florida offers award winning beaches and so much more. Special events run throughout the year and include: Major League Baseball Spring Training, Sunshine Festival of States, Artworks, Caribbean Calypso Carnival, Clearwater Jazz Holiday, John’s Pass Seafood Festival and many more. The St. Petersburg/Clearwater area also has two major airports in the area with the Tampa International Airport consistently rated as one of the finest in the world and easy access by the Interstate Highway System. Being only 90 minutes by car or bus from Walt Disney World Resort and the other Central Florida theme parks, plus only 30 minutes from Busch Gardens helps make spouse and family day trips convenient and easy to arrange. |
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