Photo by Gill Kenny, courtesy Metropolitan Tucson CVB
What’s new: Tucson’s newest meeting property opened in mid-December. The Ritz-Carlton, Dove Mountain has 250 guest rooms and suites, 44 individual and casita suites, 27 holes of Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf, three pools, a spa and Wellness Center rooms with views of ancient Indian petroglyphs. The Pima Air and Space Museum will open a 20,000-square–foot event space this fall that will accommodate up to 700. The addition includes a 100-seat restaurant. The Mini-Time Machine Museum of Miniatures opened in September with two meeting spaces and a rotunda with a starry sky for cocktail hours. The Tucson CVB is combating the economic downturn with aggressive promotions to attract meetings to the city. If a group books through the promotion, a discount is given to the group master account based on the number of rooms booked. There is a similar discount for consecutive meetings.
Rooms: There are just under 16,000 guest rooms in Tucson, from small chain hotels to large world-class resorts that offer meeting spaces as well as a variety of recreational activities.
Getting there: Southwest Airlines is the most popular airline at Tucson International Airport, but most other major airlines, including American, Delta, Frontier, United and US Airways, also fly to Tucson. Alternatively, visitors can fly into Phoenix and drive to Tucson in 90 minutes.
