San Diego-based Evans Hotels Corp. last month sold its stake in the Newport Dunes Waterfront Resort to a group led by Culver City real estate investor Goldrich & Kest Industries.

County supervisors approved the lease transfer for the Newport Beach recreational vehicle park and marina on July 23, ending the Evans family�s 25-year ownership of the drive-in resort. Financial details weren't disclosed. Estimates put the sale price as high as $50 million.

Both county and city officials earlier this year passed on the chance to own or run the resort, dubbed the Ritz of RV parks.

An Evans Hotels spokesman said company officials sold the Newport Dunes to focus on hotels �in their own backyard." The company owns and operates the Bahia Resort Hotel and Bahia Sternwheelers and Catamaran Resort Hotel on Mission Bay as well as the recently reopened Lodge at Torrey Pines in La Jolla.

Newport Dunes is a 100-acre resort on Newport�s Back Bay with 250 deluxe RV sites, 440 marina slips, a boat launch and storage, a 10-acre swimming lagoon and beach, picnic areas, a clubhouse and spa, and the Back Bay Café. 

In 1999, Evans Hotels received initial approval from Newport Beach to build a 400-room resort hotel with 55,000 square feet of meeting space and 100 timeshare units at the site. The development had an estimated price tag of $100 million. At the time, sources expressed confidence that Evans Hotels could finance the development. 

But the project was derailed by Newport�s Green light Initiative � a slow-growth measure requiring voter approval of certain new projects � that was passed by voters before the City Council could cast a final vote on the project.

Last year, as the Lodge at Torrey Pines neared completion, Evans Hotels, through its subsidiary Newport Dunes Partnership, began seeking a buyer for the Dunes.

San Diego-based Terra Vista Management Inc. is set to manage the resort. Terra Vista manages the Bayside RV park adjacent to Newport Dunes as well as an RV park at San Diego's Mission Bay. Its San Diego RV park is adjacent to wetlands.

�We�re very familiar with (environmental) issues,� said Michael Gelfand, president of Terra Vista

Gelfand said no changes were planned and current general manager Andrew Theodorou will continue in his role.

�We haven�t even begun to think about changes,� Gelfand said. �We intend to operate the property at the same high-class standard as Evans Hotels.�

But Gelfand didn't rule out development. The property could �fall back to its previous entitlements� in the future, he said.

A 275-room motel, approved in the 1980s, still would be permitted on the site.

Among G&K Industries� holdings are condominiums in Marina del Rey and high-end apartments in Brentwood. But Gelfand said the land lease at Newport Dunes doesn�t provide for residential use of the land.

�I don�t believe condos are a factor,� he said.

Newport Dunes opened in 1958 and was acquired by Bill Evans in the late 1970s. In the early 1980s, he negotiated a lease with Newport Beach and the county of Orange and in 1984 received a coastal development permit for a three-phase redevelopment to transform the Dunes into a waterfront recreational resort.

Renovations were begun by his wife, Anne, in 1989, after Evans� death. Their daughter, Anne Evans Quinn, and her husband Tim are previous managers of Newport Dunes and partners in the resort. 

Until its expansion plans were derailed by the Greenlight Initiative, Tim Quinn was project manager for the expansion. A fiscal impact analysis prepared by the city of Newport Beach estimated the expansion would have generated $1.3 million per year for the city and increase the amount of transient occupancy taxes generated by 15%. 

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Orange County�s meeting and convention market is fighting its way back toward once heady attendance projections as corporate scandals and a bear market continue to hamper economic growth.

In fact, the local market is holding its own compared to other regions that were harder hit by last fall�s downturn. Still, convention center officials are crossing their fingers that a positive first half of the year will continue. 

Almost 200 events were added to Anaheim�s master convention calendar for January to May. And the county�s diverse mix of industry meetings and conventions has helped bolster its performance in an admittedly tough market. 

�Our bookings are up about 17%,� said Charles Ahlers, chief executive of the Anaheim/Orange County Visitor & Convention Bureau.

Recent conventions like the California Dental Association, the Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exhibit and the Hearth, Patio & Barbecue Expo all drew more people than last year.

But challenges remain: more meeting space is coming to the county soon and corporate spending is unpredictable. Some observers worry that it could be mid-2003 before sizable growth comes.

First-quarter convention attendance this year � the most recent period for which figures are available � reached about 360,000. With most of that in Anaheim, the area is on pace to exceed 1 million conventioneers for the year, according to Jim Kissinger, vice president of convention sales for the
Anaheim/Orange County Visitor & Convention Bureau. 

As of mid July, the bureau had already filled hotel rooms for more nights in 2002 than it did in 2001. Last year�s convention hotel bookings were about 20% below 2000 levels, largely because of a 20% to 30% drop in attendance at conventions held after Sept. 11.

At this time last year, about 725,000 people had attended events in Orange County, putting it on pace for about 1.4 million conventioneers by year�s end. But the sudden turn of events in September resulted in a final count of 959,145 convention attendees for the year.

Despite last fall�s sudden drop in conventioneers, the county finished the year with 40.9 million visitors who spent $6.4 billion. That�s about 15% of all California visitors and 8% of all visitor spending in the state last year. 

By next year, observers say the convention market should return to pre-Sept. 11 levels.

By midyear, 189 events with an expected attendance of 772,942 are on the books for next year. And 187 events with expected attendance of 2.14 million are already inked for dates in 2004 and beyond. (The bureau defines a �booking� as a written commitment to bring an event to Anaheim.)

The bureau�s Ahlers said the Southern California market in general remains attractive to convention planners.

�The Southern California market is second in size only to New York,� Ahlers said. �So if people want to have a convention here, they can find someplace to accommodate them.�

About 75% of Anaheim�s conventions are national, 15% are regional and 10% are statewide.

The expanded Anaheim Convention Center � at 1.6 million square feet one of the largest on the West Coast � puts Orange County in the top tier of convention markets. That position is solidified by almost 3,500 hotel rooms within walking distance of the convention center and a host of restaurants and entertainment options, like those at Downtown Disney, less than a mile away. 

In all, about 20,000 of OC�s 50,000 hotel rooms are in Anaheim.

Also in Anaheim�s favor is its diverse mix of industry groups and events that include finance, education, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, professional organizations, religious organizations, governmental groups, sports events and technology.. 

In addition, there are consumer shows like the Home & Garden Show and unique trade shows like the one held by the Hobby Industry Association, an organization geared to those who manufacture, distribute and sell craft and hobby products.

Conversely, cities like San Jose and San Francisco � where technology shows were a bigger piece of the pie - felt a bigger pinch last year because of the technology meltdown.

In Anaheim, a few of this year�s conventions already have reported attendance growth ranging from 6% to 38%, bringing sighs of relief to convention center officials and hoteliers who saw attendance numbers plummet last fall.

Those numbers are in contrast to national trade show numbers, which declined in overall attendance, exhibitor numbers and total exhibitor space in the first quarter compared to a year earlier, according to industry publication Tradeshow Week. 

Consumer shows in general held their own better than trade shows last year with overall attendance growth of 2.6% that was driven in part by a public reluctant to travel after September.

Among trade shows, medical shows performed better than those in other industries last year, with a drop of 12.4% in attendance vs. a 13.3% decline for non-medical shows.

About 25 medical shows were held in OC last year. One of those was the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions, which ranked among the four largest medical shows of the year, despite a dip in attendance of about 25% from its original projection of 36,000.

A growing medical show - Medical Design & Manufacturing - brought about 22,000 people to Anaheim in February. It�s expecting about 40,000 next year, in part because it has teamed with Westpack, Pacific Design, Plastec West, Electronics West and Nutritionals to create a major show for medical design. 

But rosy outlooks aside, the future looked pretty good last year at this time, too. And there are still signs of economic weakness that present challenges for OC�s meetings market:

Business travel � including corporate participation in conventions � is still anemic. The county�s airport and Newport Beach hotels, which are heavily dependent on transient business travel, have suffered the most, but the downturn has been felt across the board. 

The Travel Industry Association, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group, says business and convention travel volume will increase by a slight 1.4% by the end of the year. A rebound to 2000 levels isn�t expected until sometime next year. Domestic travel spending is expected to be flat through 2002.

According to Los Angeles-based PKF Consulting, occupancy at OC hotels through June has slipped 8.1% to 66.5% vs. last year and rates have fallen an average of 6.3% to $112.28. 

That�s still above the nationwide occupancy of 59.5% for the first six months of the year, as measured by Hendersonville, Tenn.-based Smith Travel Research. But more hotels are opening along the coast and Anaheim�s room supply � already up 15% from 1999 � is expected to grow by as many as 2,700 rooms in the next three years. 

Hospitality analysts believe the new room supply won�t hurt if there is growth in both the number of conventions and leisure travel.

New coastal resorts alone will add about 75,000 square feet of meeting space to the county next year.

That�s in addition to the 30,000 square feet at the St. Regis Monarch Beach and Resort in Dana Point, which opened last August.

But Anaheim-area officials aren�t openly worried about the competition.

Dan Fitzgerald, director of sales at the Crowne Plaza in Garden Grove, which has 28,000 square feet of meeting space, said he thinks the high-end resorts will be selling to a different market.

�They�ll see more incentive and corporate business,� he said. �It�s more of a destination buy.�

The new resorts will benefit everyone, says Ahlers of the Anaheim/Orange County Visitor & Convention Bureau.

�They�ll raise the profile of the area,� Ahlers said. �I don�t see it as a real problem for anyone.�

One boost for the county�s meeting business will come next January when Anaheim hosts about 2,500 industry professionals at the 2003 annual meeting of the Professional Convention Management Association. It�s the group�s first visit to the county. 

Although the group will be staying in Anaheim, other cities will be active during the meeting. 

Newport Beach is planning to bring some attendees to the city for an evening of yacht-hopping�a progressive dinner at waterfront restaurants reached via yacht. And the new Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach Resort plans to host pre- and post-convention groups at its hotel.

Ahlers calls it an example of how the entire community comes together to promote the county.

�There doesn�t seem to be any animosity, even between competitor hotels,� he said. 
 

Sandi Cain is copy editor and a staff reporter covering hospitality,tourism, travel and sports. Cain holds bachelor�s and master�s degrees in education from Kent State University in Ohio, where she majored in social studies. A former high school teacher, she has written for niche-market sports publications in the U.S., England and Australia and formerly worked in both the printing and high-tech industries. A Cleveland, Ohio native, Cain hasbeen a resident of Laguna Beach since the late �70s. She enjoys travel, gardening, reading and spoiling her three cats.