Preferred Hotel Group, The Omphoy Ocean Resort Palm Beach, Fla., and Kirkland Event & Destination Services hosted 11 meeting professionals at the chic new Palm Beach boutique hotel in mid-November, before planners and hospitality partners headed off to the Financial & Insurance Conference Planners Annual Conference in Miami Beach.

Julie Stovroff, director of sales for Preferred, invited the planners who were welcomed at the resort by The Omphoy sales team: Michelle Deegan, national sales manager; Lucinda Gaudio, director of national sales; and Deborah Carr, general manager. Also on hand as host was Paget Kirkland of Kirkland Event & Destination Management in Palm Beach.

The group enjoyed an oceanside reception on The Terrace followed by dinner in Michelle Bernstein Restaurant, featuring the award-winning chef’s Asian-influenced dishes with twist of Latin glamour, paired with wines selected by Joshua Lieberman, sommelier at Omphoy. Guests enjoyed a morning of leisure or participated in a fitness class called “exhale core fusion,” designed by exhale Spa New York, before shuttling south. The brief visit, said General Manager Deborah Carr, offered “the opportunity to partner with Preferred and showcase Palm Beach’s only oceanfront boutique hotel. We are excited about our new relationships and future plans to partner and work together.”

When it opened in summer 2009, the Omphoy Ocean Resort Palm Beach, was the first new hotel on the island of Palm Beach in nearly two decades. The hotel has 130 guest rooms and suites, 6,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor meeting space, exhale spa, OBar, The Terrace, and Michelle Bernstein Restaurant.