Utah continually defies visitors’ expectations. Those coming for red rock canyons may be amazed by Utah’s popularity as a ski destination, while skiers may be surprised by an increasingly hip Salt Lake City, or the unlimited drama of the southern canyon lands.
Utah changes dramatically every few dozen miles, and it’s worth exploring more than once.
Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City is promoting itself with a new tagline, “Different by Nature,” to emphasize that it’s a big city on the Rocky Mountains’ doorstep, says Shawn Stinson, director of communications for the Salt Lake CVB.
“We are a city with city amenities, but we’re saying ‘metro to mountains’—a ballet, an NBA team, a symphony, a shopping district, yet you can access pretty decent outdoor adventure just a few steps away,” Stinson says.
Salt Lake City is Utah’s largest city and capital, and it anchors an area running from Ogden in the north to Provo in the south. Thanks to Delta Air Lines, it’s also the West’s largest airline hub.
Facility improvements and the addition of increasingly sophisticated amenities—even since the 2002 Olympics—have also boosted Salt Lake City’s attractiveness. The city’s major convention venue, the Salt Palace, just finished a major expansion that allows Salt Lake to host larger events, such as the Outdoor Retailer show and this month’s Rotary International meeting, according to Stinson.
“It definitely increases the field on which we can play. A lot of groups we previously could not have bid for, we now can, in the league of Seattle and San Diego,” Stinson says.
Meanwhile, the city plans to greatly expand its light rail system—which already serves a downtown that includes major businesses, government offices and the Mormon Church’s beautiful headquarters buildings—and to widen downtown sidewalks to increase pedestrian-friendliness.
Salt Lake City boasts numerous properties catering to groups, including the Grand America Hotel, the Little America Hotel, the Salt Lake City Marriott Downtown, the Salt Lake City Marriott City Center, the Hilton Salt Lake City Center, and the Hotel Monaco.
A short drive from the city, group-friendly ski resorts include Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort, Alta Ski Area and Solitude Ski Area.
Park City
Park City was the nexus of the 2002 Winter Olympics, although the 2006–2007 ski season had relatively modest snow, according to Sarah Myers, meetings and conventions sales and marketing manager at the Park City Chamber of Commerce and CVB. That is, if 25 feet of powder can be considered “modest.”
“It’s hard coming off last year, when we had 500-plus inches,” she says. “But we had 300 inches of snow, and the ski resorts have reported strong numbers. And we always have things such as the Sundance [Film Festival], which draws people regardless each January.”
During the other three seasons, plenty of recreational pursuits are on tap, including hunting, fishing, mountain biking, hiking, and golfing.
Facilities like Utah Olympic Park help keep Olympic memories alive. The park has two winter sports-oriented museums as well as meeting space, plus year-round bobsledding that groups can participate in. On Saturday afternoons during the summer, Olympians-in-training use the facilities here for ski jumping practice, splashing down in a specially frothed pool that softens their landings. Groups can rent patio space adjoining the pool for a ringside seat.
Park City is well prepared for groups, with dozens of meetings-ready properties. Top options include the Park City Marriott, Hotel Park City, Stein Eriksen Lodge, Canyons Grand Summit Hotel and Conference Center, Yarrow Resort Hotel and Conference Center, Prospector Square Lodging and Conference Center, The Lodges at Deer Valley, and Park City Mountain Resort Legacy Lodge.
In nearby Midway, the new Zermatt Resort and Spa and Homestead Resort are also well suited to groups.
Provo/Sundance
Provo and Orem are situated along freshwater Utah Lake, and although their metropolitan area has more than 415,000 people, fully 60,000 are students at Brigham Young University or Utah Valley State College. Charlene Christensen, director of convention services at the Utah Valley CVB, sees this area as a great alternative to Salt Lake City for planners who want the city’s convenience but slightly lower costs.
“A lot of the reason hotel and meeting space is being used [here] is because we are a smaller destination, and the price is a bit more economical,” Christensen says.
That said, Christensen flags Robert Redford’s nearby resort, Sundance, as a great destination for incentive trips, thanks to its spa activities, horseback riding and fly-fishing.
Meanwhile, Brigham Young University offers function facilities, and the Provo Marriott Hotel and Conference Center is another top option.
Thanksgiving Point in Lehi has also become a major area draw. This large educational and cultural facility includes 55 acres of botanical gardens, the Museum of Ancient Life and Art Institute, and other facilities. Planners can accommodate up to 1,000 people at the Thanksgiving Point’s conference center.
Northern Utah
Ogden was Utah’s first European settlement and sits near the Golden Spike that connected the first transcontinental railroad. Today this prosperous city of 75,000 offers nearly endless outdoor activities: alpine and Nordic skiing, snowshoeing, road cycling, fly-fishing, golfing, hiking, kayaking, climbing, bouldering, and 200 miles of forest service trails starting at the edge of town.
Ogden is tucked between the northeastern edge of the Great Salt Lake and the Wasatch Mountains. Its downtown’s historic buildings date from the 19th century and Ogden’s boom years as the intersection of east-west and north-south railways. In fact, Ogden was a kind of a Rocky Mountain Sin City in the glory days of passenger rail, with saloons, gambling dens and houses of ill repute serving up to 70 passenger trains per day.
Ogden was also the location of the downhill, Super G and combined-skiing events during the 2002 Winter Olympics, and visitors can ski those Olympic courses at the nearby Snowbasin Resort.
Attractions here include the circa-1924 Union Station building, which houses the Utah State Railroad Museum, plus museums and galleries devoted to gems and minerals, classic cars, firearms, model railroading, natural history, and the arts.
Peery’s Egyptian Theater—a restored 1920s Art Deco-meets-Egyptian movie palace—seats 1,200 beneath a “sky” ceiling that smoothly changes from bright “daytime” to starlit “night.” Peery’s connects with the Ogden Eccles Conference Center’s 50,000 square feet of meeting space.
Hotels in town include the classic Ben Lomond Historic Suite Hotel, the Ogden Marriott and the Hampton Inn & Suites Ogden.
East of Ogden at Snowbasin, Sun Valley Resort offers year-round outdoor recreation as well as meeting space.
Suburban Davis County is strategically located between Salt Lake City and Ogden. Its Great Salt Lake location makes it a natural for tourism, particularly for wildlife viewing and especially for bird watching. The city hosts the Great Salt Lake Bird Festival each May, and visitors can also check out the state park on Antelope Island, an offshore beauty where visitors can hike, mountain bike or just watch the local buffalo, antelope and coyotes.
Layton is the county’s major city, and its Davis Conference Center offers 41,000 square feet of meeting space. The center will finish a $10 million expansion next month.
Nearly at the Idaho and Wyoming borders, the city of Logan follows most Wasatch Range communities in touting its outdoor opportunities, but it also brims with visual, musical and fine artists, says Julie Hollist, director of the Cache Valley Visitors Bureau.
“There are hundreds of performers hiding out in Cache Valley, and they’re always doing something remarkable,” Hollist says.
Logan hosts the Utah Festival Opera, which performs operas, light operettas and musicals each summer; the Ellen Eccles Theatre, whose performers range from Russian dancers to Broadway touring companies; Utah State University’s year-round Performing Arts Series; and the Caine Lyric Theatre, allegedly haunted by a ghost who laughs during Hamlet rehearsals.
The American West Heritage Center in nearby Wellsville focuses on four aspects of Western history: Native Americans, mountain men and trappers, the Mormon pioneers, and turn-of-the-20th-century farming. Groups can learn to drive a team of horses on a plow, shoot a black-powder rifle or set a beaver trap.
Groups can stay on the Utah State University campus at the 69-room University Inn, which has meeting space for up to 2,200, or at other properties, including the Alta Manor Suites, the Best Western Weston Inn, the Sherwood Resort, and the Beaver Creek Lodge.
Southern Utah
St. George is close to Zion National Park and offers theater, year-round golf and a summertime “Broadway in the Desert” program that always draws crowds; this year’s lineup includes Cinderella, 42nd Street and My Fair Lady.
St. George is comfortable with large groups, since it hosts the St. George Marathon and the Huntsman World Senior Games, which attract up to 40,000 visitors annually.
The 138,000-square-foot Dixie Center is the destination’s major gathering venue, while it is also home to group retreats such as Red Mountain Spa and Green Valley Health Resort and Spa, as well as a Hilton Garden Inn and a Courtyard by Marriott. The destination is adding a number of new properties; a Comfort Inn will open this month, while other hotels under construction and slated to open by October include brands such as La Quinta, Holiday Inn Express Hotel & Suites, Wingate, and Country Inn & Suites.
Just up Highway 15, Cedar City offers a heat-beating higher elevation and a Tony Award-winning Shakespeare Festival. The city’s four major theaters include the city-owned, 1,000-seat Heritage Center, which also has conference and meeting facilities.
The Sharwan Smith Center and the Haze Hunter Conference Center are also premier group options.
Nearby are Cedar Breaks National Monument, a natural amphitheater that’s less crowded than neighboring Bryce and Zion national parks, and the Brian Head Ski Resort.
The area’s most highly rated hotel property is the four-star Cedar Breaks Lodge, whose day spa supplements 118 guest villas and 7,500 square feet of meeting space.
Moab’s popularity for hiking and mountain biking continues to expand. Majestic scenery and foresight in creating new trails and maintaining old ones have helped the town post impressive growth, says Marian DeLay, executive director of the Moab Area Travel Council.
“Fifteen years ago when we started advertising for this area, we had about 250,000 people a year in the parks, and now we’re looking at 1.5 million a year,” DeLay says.
Moab recently added two properties northeast of town: the 100-room Red Cliffs Adventure Lodge and the 57-room Sorrel River Ranch Resort Hotel & Spa, both with Colorado River views and meeting space. Sorrel River Ranch is a AAA Five Diamond property, while the Red Cliffs Lodge’s winery has the area’s largest meetings-capable space at its 9,000-square-foot main building.
Other meetings options include the downtown Moab Valley Inn, the Grand County Civic Center and the historic Star Hall, which is wrapping up a renovation.
For More Info
Cache Valley Visitors Bureau (Logan) 435.755.1890
www.tourcachevalley.com
Cedar City & Brian Head Tourism & Conv. Bureau 435.586.5124
www.scenicsouthernutah.com
Davis Area CVB 801.774.8200
www.davisareacvb.com
Moab Area Travel Council 435.259.1370
www.discovermoab.com
Ogden/Weber CVB 801.627.8288
www.ogdencvb.org
Park City COC and CVB 435.649.6100
www.parkcitymeetings.com
Salt Lake CVB 801.521.2822
www.visitsaltlake.com
St. George Area CVB 435.634.5747
www.utahstgeorge.com
Utah Office of Tourism 801.538.1030
www.utah.com
Utah Valley CVB (Provo, Sundance) 801.851.2100
www.utahvalley.org
