Anaheim: The Elite Place to Meet

The editors of Successful Meetings magazine have installed Anaheim on a Top 10 list of hot sites for meetings and business travel in the coming years.

Current trade show and meetings favorites like Las Vegas and Orlando will be challenged by less-frequented spots like Austin, Texas; Biloxi, Miss.; and Anaheim, the magazine said. The list was developed by looking at things that transform destinations--hotels, new attractions, airport expansions--followed by confirmation interviews “taking the pulse of people in the know,” magazine editor Julie Barker said.

Anaheim, where Walt Disney Co. is adding a second theme park and the Convention Center is being expanded, “is constantly undergoing renovation,” Barker said. She cited the large number of new hotels announced in the area, including three at the proposed Pointe Anaheim, a 29-acre retail, dining, and entertainment complex across Harbor Boulevard from Disneyland.

Other potential hot spots include Boston; Providence, R.I.; central Utah; and Memphis, Tenn., the magazine said. It even gave the nod to Anchorage, Alaska--in Barker’s words “one of the few spots left in the country where attendees who have been-there, done-that can get a ‘foreign experience’ without leaving the country.”

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E. Scott Reckard covers tourism for The Times. He can be reached at (714) 966-7407 and at scott.reckard@latimes.com.