Northwest.

FLORIDA AN ASSOCIATION MEETING PLANNER'S PARADISE

From the rustic beauty of the panhandle to the spectacular sunsets of Key West, Florida looks good for any association meeting. The Sunshine State has so much to offer that it would be nearly impossible not to conduct a successful event. Great weather, famous family attractions, miles of white sand beaches, a seemingly endless number of top golf courses, and an outstanding selection of resorts and hotels combine to make Florida a favorite destination for associations.

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New hotels and meeting space along with its proximity to the nightlife on Mississippi's Gulf Coast make Pensacola an appealing destination for many groups. Located on Pensacola Beach is the Hilton Garden Inn, which opened in mid-2003. The 183-room hotel includes a 10,000-square-foot conference center.

Also opening last year was the 107-unit Homewood Suites with meeting space for up to 125 people near the Pensacola Regional Airport. The new hotel, which is only about 10 minutes from downtown Pensacola, is adjacent to a 126-room Hampton Inn with 2,000 square feet of meeting space.

Also recently expanded is Seville Quarter, an entertainment complex housed in historic warehouse buildings downtown. The facility now can host up to 200 people for banquets or a reception for 800. Another popular Pensacola attraction is the IMAX Theater at the National Naval Aviation Museum, which includes an expansive exhibit hall with a collection of 180 aircrafts.

The big news along the Emerald Coast is the recent opening of the Emerald Coast Conference Center with 35,000 square feet of column-free exhibit space, 13 meeting rooms, and a 21,500-square-foot ballroom. The new center, which can accommodate up to 1,865 people for a banquet, is conveniently located on Okaloosa Island within walking distance of 4,000 hotel rooms.

More than 30 hotels in the Destin, Fort Walton, and Okaloosa Island area offer meeting space. Among the largest are the 299-room Radisson Beach Resort with 10,000 square feet of space and the 335-room Ramada Plaza Beach Resort with 14,000 square feet of meeting space.

Also just a few miles east of Destin is the fabulous Sandestin Golf & Beach Resort, which expanded last year when it opened the Grand Sandestin, a luxury condominium-style hotel with 168 one-, two-, and three-bedroom units. Last summer, the resort also opened its $16 million Baytowne Conference Center, whose 32,000 square feet of meeting space nearly doubled the resort's total event space to 65,000 square feet. The resort, which offers 1,300 guest accommodation units, also recently opened the Village of Baytowne Wharf, an upscale dining and shopping district.

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An increasingly popular tourist destination, Panama City Beach offers some 22,000 guest rooms. The bulk of the city's hotel meetings activity takes place in four outstanding resorts that collectively offer more than 125,000 square feet of meeting space and more than 1,800 guest rooms.

One of the properties, Marriott's Bay Point Resort Village, recently completed a $12.5 million renovation to its 356 guest rooms. Other meetings properties include the 620-room Boardwalk Beach Resort, the 340-room Holiday Inn Sunspree Resort, and the 550-room Edgewater Beach Resort & Conference Center, which opened its 32,700-square-foot conference center in mid-2000.

Averaging 320 days of sunshine every year, it's a safe bet that the weather will allow meeting delegates to enjoy Panama City's 27 miles of beaches that are regarded as among the nation's finest. One of the city's leading attractions, Gulf World Marine Park, recently completed a $6.5 million project. It now features more than 25 shows and exhibits, including the SplashMagic Laser Show.

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