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TUCSON & SOUTHERN ARIZONATucson and Southern Arizona have it all – wildlife, history, arts and culture, food, shopping and a chance to experience the old west. Located in a region known as the Sonoran Desert, natural desert vegetation coexists alongside emerald fairways, and rolling hills give way to rugged mountains and charming communities. Visitors enjoy hiking and horseback riding among towering saguaro cactuses, or teeing off on one of the area’s many fine golf courses designed by some of the world’s top golfers. Southern Arizona is a bird-watcher’s heaven and everyone is astounded by the Sonoran Desert blooms. Tucson As one of the oldest, continually inhabited areas in North America, Tucson is the authentic Southwestern destination and is notably the sunniest city in the U.S. (350 days of sunshine per year). With mile after mile of pristine desert, cactus like nowhere else on Earth, spectacular mountains in every direction, raw surroundings, challenging high-desert golf, a diverse culinary scene, historic cowboy culture, Spanish, Mexican and Native-American heritage, and exciting attractions – Tucson doesn’t disappoint. Tucson International Airport makes the area easily accessible with eight different airlines offering daily departures to 15 non-stop destinations, and was recently selected to be one of the first airports in the country allowing travelers to book flights on Southwest’s first international service to Mexico. The Tucson Convention Center is located in historic downtown Tucson – your delegates can walk to any of several hotels, shops, and many restaurants located a few blocks from the Center. With 205,000 square feet of meeting space, the Tucson Convention Center has the size and flexibility to accommodate almost any type of meeting, convention, trade show, or banquet event you may be planning. The Old Pueblo’s (as Tucson is nicknamed due to the adobe-walled Tucson Presidio) rich history in hospitality is illuminated in its many marvelous properties. Resorts and hotels are located close to the region’s natural parks, as well as cosmopolitan amenities such as fine dining, arts, and shopping. Whether your group chooses one of the full-service resort properties with golf and spa, or a historic inn close to downtown, or a guest ranch that assigns you a room and horse, Tucson lodging options are boundless.
Another excellent choice, the Hilton Tucson El Conquistador Golf & Tennis Resortis a Forbes Travel Guide Three Star and AAA Four Diamond, full-service destination golf resort nestled in the foothills of the Santa Catalina Mountains on 500 acres of high Sonoran Desert. Recently awarded the American Hotel & Lodging Association “Stars of the Industry” award, the largest golf resort in Southern Arizona was recognized by industry peers and colleagues. Two championship 18-hole layouts are situated at the Golf Club, while a superb 9-hole track plays around the resort further up the mountainside. In November 2011, Casino del Sol’s expansion to 215 rooms and suites with more than 65,000 square feet of function space will be available for groups looking for a place to stay and play. Currently Casino Del Sol, Southern Arizona’s premier entertainment and gaming destination, offers nearly 1000 slot machines, live blackjack, poker and bingo. There are six restaurants and three bars, live entertainment Thursday-Saturday nights and world-class entertainment at AVA Amphitheater.
Museums are popular venues in Tucson. An affiliate of the Smithsonian Museum, the Arizona State Museum is the largest and oldest anthropological museum in the Southwest, created by the Arizona Territorial Legislature in 1893. Its permanent collection includes several hundreds of thousands of artifacts – Navajo textiles, Mexican folk masks, basketry, Seri materials – some dating back 13,000 years. In addition to its expansive permanent collection, the museum stages temporary exhibits. At the University of Arizona Museum of Art, see paintings by 15th century Spanish master Fernando Gallego, Jackson Pollack, Georgia O’Keefe and Wassily Kandinsky. If your taste runs more to fine art photography than fine art, continue along the Museum Neighborhood to the collection at the Center for Creative Photography. The collection here includes the archives of over 50 photographers, including Ansel Adams, Lola Alvarez Bravo, Richard Avedon, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, W. Eugene Smith, and Edward Weston, among others. There’s also the Museum of Contemporary Art, which is still building its permanent collection, but mounts six to eight temporary exhibitions a year featuring the work of artists from around the world. Before going, be sure to pick up the Tucson Attractions Passport and receive two-for-one passes and discounts at this and over 40 other Tucson and Southern Arizona attractions. All this history, education, and culture will undoubtedly need to be refueled with fabulous food. Many of the 3,000-some restaurants in Tucson are local establishments where owners and chefs have created signature blends of Southwestern cuisine. The menus often trace back to the owner’s origins, perhaps to Latin America or Spain, or to Native American roots or the interior or the coastal regions of Mexico. (Tucson proper boasts more than 150 Mexican restaurants.) From outdoor cowboy cookout venues to white tablecloth gourmet dining – Tucson’s choices for groups are unlimited. The hotels and resorts offer a full range of menu items from classic American fare to innovative Southwestern dishes. At Westin La Paloma, Janos’ exterior and interior décor is every bit as elegant as its food is inspired. Opened in 1983 by James Beard award-winning Janos Wilder and wife Rebecca, this restaurant has served cuisine highlighting local ingredients. Just recently Wilder opened the brand new Downtown Kitchen and Cocktails. In addition to live music and modern American cuisine, the restaurant has also partnered with the Etherton Gallery to feature art as pleasing to your eyes as the food is to your palette. Eat as much as you like, there’s no shortage of places to walk, ride, or golf off the calories. For in-your-face encounters with the giant Saguaro cactus, head east or west, to Saguaro National Park. The park consists of two districts, one on either side of the city, but both possess an imposing array of these natural wonders, with their needle-dotted arms extended skyward. They appear quite welcoming – just don’t touch. Saguaro National Park, home to approximately 1.3 million of the state’s signature plant, sandwiches the city. Northeast of Tucson at the foot of the Santa Catalina Mountains, Sabino Canyon Recreation Area has miles of trails for hiking and biking. Try experiencing the beauty of the Sonoran Desert from the basket of a hot air balloon. Southern Arizona Balloon Excursions specializes in taking small and large groups over the stunning Tucson and Catalina mountains. Make sure your camera’s memory card has lots of room. Speaking of “hitting it”, Tucson’s mild climate and outstanding courses make this city a favorite golf destination. Take your best shot on a challenging desert golf course, or enjoy a more traditional links-style layout. The Ritz- Carlton Golf Club at Dove Mountain is the home of the World Golf Championships – Accenture Match Play Championship. The world’s top 64 golfers will try to etch their names in the history book of this exciting tournament held each February, and Tucson’s climate lets you stand in their shoes throughout the year. Golfers seeking value-oriented courses have multiple options in Tucson as well, including an excellent collection of municipal tracks, such as Randolph Park, Silverbell, Fred Enke and El Rio, which dates back to the 1930s. Southern Arizona Not far from the developed city of Tucson lie lush tracts of saguaro-studded hills, riparian canyons where streambeds run full in the spring and cottonwood trees turn in the fall, and cool mountain peaks flourish with ponderosa pines and wintertime snow. Brilliant nighttime skies captivate both romantics and serious stargazers in Southern Arizona. Stargazers will thrive at Kitt Peak National Observatory that tops a 6,882-foot summit 55 miles southwest of Tucson. On the Tohono O’odham Reservation, Kitt Peak has the largest collection of optical telescopes in the world; it has 24 of them plus two radio telescopes pointed towards the heavens. Eight astronomical research institutions do work here. Each night, three scopes are dedicated to the public’s use. Although most wanna-be astronomers are content with several hours of guided gazing, a lucky few members of the public can participate in an all-night “advanced” stargazing program, which includes overnight accommodations, three meals, and learning to take astronomical data, peering through the telescopes, and taking home 10-12 images from the evening. For the shorter session, expect to see nebulae, star clusters, galaxies, and planets before heading back down the mountain around 9 p.m. After experiencing outer space, head for inner space at Kartchner Caverns State Park, nine miles south of Benson. The Caverns are a limestone cave over 50,000 years in the making – and still being made – Kartchner opened to the public as a state park in 1999 and is the only living cave in the world open to visitors. More than 25 years of planning, including seven years of actual construction, have resulted in a visitor experience that protects the cavern’s fragile ecosystem. The number of daily visitors is limited to ensure that the park will continue to thrive and evolve. This means that reservations should be made well in advance of your trip date. The park recently began offering its “Big Room Tour,” which shows spectacular formations and gives visitors a chance to stand where the discoverers first entered the cave. Another of the region’s most unusual lures is Biosphere 2. The 3-acre glass terrarium structure was built as an airtight living lab to see how folks might function in space and to examine how life itself might evolve. No longer a sealed facility, it was taken over by the University of Arizona in 2007. This three+ acre mini-earth is complete with rainforest, ocean, savannah, desert, wetland, and agricultural areas. Biosphere’s experienced staff can help coordinate catering from off-site vendors, since the secluded campus does not house restaurant facilities. Audio/visual and technical support are available, and private or specialized Biosphere tours can be arranged. Try to plan your event around one of Southern Arizona’s wine country festivals. As the state’s first wine region, Southern Arizona wineries have been acclaimed in the Wall Street Journal and The Wine Advocate. They’ve also been served to Washington dignitaries at Sandra Day O’Connor’s retirement. The Mountain Empire’s 3rd Annual Wine, Dine and Unwind Festival includes live music, a car show, artists’ demonstrations and a film festival. In Wilcox, enjoy up to 10 Arizona Wine Growers Association member wines at the Wilcox Wine Country Spring Festival. If you aren’t able to make one of the wine festivals, explore the area on horseback anytime with the wine tour offered by Arizona Horseback Experience. From the wine region head to Bisbee, a mile-high city located in the Mule Mountains of Southern Arizona. Get a feel for this mining town by taking the Queen Mine Tour, where you’ll venture underground to experience the daily life of a miner. Have lunch at Dot’s Diner in the Shady Dell, where personality is the daily special (closed in June and July). Take time to visit the Bisbee Mining Museum, a Smithsonian affiliate that was once the corporate headquarters of the Copper Queen Consolidated Mining Company. Bisbee’s storied past is recorded, reflected and retold in this museum like no other. Also enjoy Bisbee’s many art galleries and eclectic shops. Stay at Arizona’s oldest continuously running hotel, the Copper Queen Hotel, and don’t forget to visit Brewery Gulch, an area once know for its notorious saloons and brothels, which offers a variety of restaurants and bars. Southern Arizona’s small towns offer diverse and illuminating history and heritage. Tubac Presidio State Historic Park, 45 miles south of Tucson, showcases its Spanish presidio past in a museum, underground archaeology display, trailhead and assorted outbuildings. Modern-day Tubac teems with art galleries, working studios, gift shops, a culinary school and dining establishments, all in close proximity, making for a delightful day of one-stop browsing and shopping. “Where art and history meet” is the town’s slogan and it certainly deserves its reputation as a hip, happening, historic smaller town with half of the businesses in town as art galleries of some sort. Just 12.5 miles south of Tubac, the AAA Four Diamond Esplendor Resort at Rio Ricooverlooks the Santa Cruz River Valley with panoramic views. Other features include a Robert Trent Jones Sr. designed golf course, stables, Olympic size pool and award-winning cuisine. From here, it’s an easy drive to the twin border cities of Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, where hundreds of curio shops offer plenty of opportunities for bargain hunting, especially for leather, jewelry, and terra cotta pottery. The area’s fascinating history lies in the mystique of the Wild West. Much of the story was written in the mining towns and ranches of the Arizona frontier. Of the rough-and-tumble towns that sprang up during the rush for mineral wealth after Arizona was proclaimed a territory, Tombstone was by far the most notorious. Once considerably larger than Tucson, Tombstone is quiet these days, but visitors can watch re-enactments of the gunfights that used to break out along Allen Street. The best known of them took place at the OK Corral, now a popular tourist attraction, as is Boothill, the town’s once-busy boneyard. Tombstone’s Historic Rose Tree – the world’s largest rose tree, as confirmed by the folks at the Guiness Book, will be blooming this year for the 125th time. This historic rose tree, a Lady Banks variety, now covers more than 8,000 square feet and warrants a yearly festival every April when she blooms. Cuttings of the tree are available in the gift shop. Scenic Byway
Tubac and the Southern Arizona Wine Country Accommodations Esplendor Resort at Rio Rico Hilton Tucson El Conquistador Hotel Tucson @ Hyatt Place Tucson Airport Casino Del Sol Westin La Paloma Dining Flemings Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar
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Among Tucson’s stellar full-service resorts is the 
Tucson’s meeting choices span past luxury resorts; some of Tucson’s most unique and beautiful venues can be found at the city’s best-known attractions. One of the region’s top attractions is the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, a fabulous living garden and cage-less zoo. It covers the entire Sonoran environment in one you-have-to-see-it-to-believe-it space. Over 1,200 different desert plants thrive in six different habitats, with a hummingbird aviary, mountain lions, ocelots, and Mexican wolves thrown in for good measure. Definitely check out the new Running Wild exhibit which takes place in the Warden Oasis Theater and features native animals scurrying across the stage, while birds circle overhead demonstrating the natural movements of animals in their habitats. Group events can take advantage of the 270-seat Warden Oasis Theater for their event as well. The contemporary, versatile Baldwin Education Building accommodates up to 200 guests for receptions, meetings and formal dinners, and features a spectacular view of the surrounding desert mountains through a glass panel wall that opens up to an outdoor balcony.
