New hotel rooms turning city into convention draw

With more space at hand, Boca can angle for much larger events.

BOCA RATON — A cluster of new hotels in eastern Boca Raton has elevated the city’s status as a vacation destination for larger convention groups and meeting-goers.

For decades, the Boca Raton Resort and Club has been a popular gathering spot for corporate groups, trade associations, and other large events. But through the years, the 1,000-room resort has been forced to turn some of the largest groups away because there weren’t enough nearby hotel rooms to accommodate all the guests, said John Tolbert, the property’s president and managing director.

With the opening of the 200room Hyatt Place Boca Raton this month and Mandarin Oriental Boca’s 118-rooms set to come online next year, the Boca Raton area will be able to host large “citywide” conventions — allowing southern Palm Beach County The Palm Beach Post analyzed five years’ worth of traffic citations through June 2016, about 85,000 tickets from the two largest cities in northern Palm Beach County, finding where police issued the most tickets, disparities in gender and other issues. Read the stories at to compete for events that would generate about 1,500 nightly hotel bookings. Previously, the resort has been limited to groups that generate roughly 700 nightly room bookings.

“We’ve turned down thousands of groups over the years that we couldn’t get enough room block for,” Tolbert said. “This allows us to take groups that would have had to go to a convention center previously.”

Adding to the package: the Waldorf Astoria resort’s luxury setting and historic buildings, Tolbert said.

“It really creates a powerful combination,” he said.

The new Hyatt is just over a mile north of the Boca Resort. The Mandarin Oriental hotel, part of the 830,000-square-foot complex now under construction at the northeast corner of Federal Highway and Camino Real, is even closer.

Both of the new hotels are just a few blocks south of Mizner Place, Boca’s outdoor entertainment and shopping hub.

“Individually, the (hotels) are