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plenary Scottsdale’s Sunsational FAM
CONVENE ON SITE Beauty Is More Than Skin Deep in Scottsdale T
here’s no denying it: Scottsdale is one good-looking city, from the neon-ombré sunsets to the
perpetually lush golf courses and gar- dens to the straight-out-of-a-Western desert landscape. If the United States were a high school, Scottsdale would be the blond cheerleader — perpetu- ally sunny, always smiling, and always freshly coiffed. During a perfectly temperate (in my Florida-born mind) May week when the temperatures were just inching past 90 degrees, I attended the Scottsdale Convention & Visitors Bureau’s 26th Annual Sunsational FAM, a three-day whirlwind tour of the destination’s preeminent group hotels, venues, and activities. After checking in at the Wes- tin Kierland Resort & Spa on Sunday
26 PCMA CONVENE AUGUST 2013
afternoon, it was time to kick off our packed itinerary with a site tour of the sprawling, AAA Four-Diamond resort. Overlooking the rolling greens of the 18-hole Kierland Golf Club, the hotel grabs every opportunity to soak up views of the nearby mountain ranges from its plentiful grand windows, ter- races, and balconies. And the 250-acre resort has numerous options for events
— 183,000 square feet worth, to be exact — including ballroom and breakout spaces specially designed to accommo- date large groups or multiple smaller groups at the same time. Our first dinner at BLT Steak, at
the just-as-sprawling JW Marriott Scottsdale Camelback Inn Resort & Spa, included a revolving array of steakhouse classics served family-style
— perfect for our 25-person group that was just getting to know each other. The property has been a resort fixture in Scottsdale since 1936, and the casita- style guest rooms — many featuring private patios — are set within a lovely meandering landscape filled with color- ful flora and fauna and bronze sculp- tures of local historic figures. Hotel properties with robust, color-
ful gardens, growing everything from cacti to bougainvillea, seem to be the fashion in Scottsdale, and the Zona Hotel & Suites Scottsdale is no excep- tion. We enjoyed breakfast on our second day beneath a canopy of flower- ing trees and finished with a quick tour of the hotel’s versatile suites, which come with up to four bedrooms. After moving on to the 266-room Scottsdale