Westlake Travel Site Inspection - Day 1

Hi everyone!

So in one of my previous blogs, I mentioned how my supervisor and I put together an itinerary for a site visit to Phoenix for Peter Borza, a big Cleveland Indians fan from Ohio who works as a Group Tour Specialist for a company known as Westlake Travel. Pete has been in constant contact with me and has expressed interest in bringing in a senior citizen group of about 40 Cleveland Indians' baseball fans to their spring training games in 2010, but first wanted to make sure that he chose the right properties to stay at as well as the right type of transportation. So Peter and his assistant Sue Kwiatt arrived to Phoenix on Wednesday, March 25 for their week long site visit and I got the opportunity to accompany them and our TIS manager, Ryan, yesterday so here is a quick recollection of yesterday's events.

Ryan and I met at the Greater Phoenix CVB Office and she decided to take the company mini-van for this site visit so that all four of us could seat comfortably. After about a 30 minute drive, we finally arrived at the Holiday Inn & Suites in Goodyear, where we met with Peter and Sue. Peter was much older than I expected but he seemed to be in pretty good shape for being that old (72 years old!) and surprisingly did not really need help with anything! We met with the sales manager, Chris Loftus, and after a quick breakfast, it was time to move on to the next property visit. Our next stop was the Holiday Inn Express near the I-10 West in Goodyear and this property was slightly smaller than the first Holiday Inn and again it was Chris who showed us around and gave us a tour of the hotel. We thanked him for his time and we decided it was time to check out the brand new Goodyear Recreational Complex, the new spring training home of the Cleveland Indians. The stadium was huge but we were not able to get a tour of it since the manager was at a meeting with his supervisors and so did not have the time to show us around but promised he would sometime that week.

Our next stop was the Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort & Spa in Chandler (pictures), where we did a site visit and lunch. This property is amazing! This resort is Arizona's only Native American-owned luxury resort, with 500 culturally-themed rooms of the Pima and Maricopa tribes. It is a 5 star luxury resort with every and any kind of amenities available and more. They have 2 18 hole golf courses, stables, and so much more making it my new favorite resort in Arizona :) There's some more great pics at http://www.wildhorsepassresort.com/

After a good couple of hours in paradise, it was unfortunately time to move on to our final stop of the day, the Rawhide Western Town and Steakhouse, which is literally right across the street from the Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort. Rawhide is Arizona's largest Western-themed attraction and is an authentic replica of an 1880's town complete with a Main Street, gunfights, seasonal speciality shows, stagecoach and train rides, a mechanical bull, and even a petting ranch. Rawhide is a very impressive replica of an old western town that is as authentic as you can get, in terms of the old west. While walking on the street of Rawhide, it really felt like I was back in the Wild West or on a set of a cowboy movie. Its authenticity was really impressive. Check it out at http://www.rawhide.com/home-index.html.

I must say that the day was long but it was a great experience since not only did I meet the Sales Managers of all the properties, but I also got to check out all these properties for free while experiencing some of their luxuries, such as tasting their food and exploring the presidential suites! It was a fun experience and I hope that my supervisors take me on a site inspection as soon as possible because it definitely is more fun than a normal day at the GPCVB Office!