Reno and Lake Tahoe Take Off

Lake Tahoe's famous scenery received its due this summer, when USA Today's readers voted it "Best Lake in America," along with other honors from online travel agency Orbitz, which named it the No. 1 ski destination, and travel review site TripAdvisor, which called it the No. 1 U.S. travel destination.

Lake Tahoe's famous slopes also received some Olympic hype this past winter, when two-time gold-medal-winning snowboarder Shaun White chose Vail Resorts' Northstar at Tahoe as his home training resort, and unveiled a 500-foot-long, 22-foot-high snow halfpipe that opened to the public in January.

The meetings and incentive industries have long known that the Reno/Lake Tahoe area, straddling the California-Nevada border, is a prime destination, with high desirability among attendees and excellent facilities, as well as some of the most beautiful scenery in the nation.

New Resorts and Facilities
The Grand Sierra Resort's new owners are in the process of a $25-million renovation that includes a refreshed lobby area overlooking Reno's largest casino floor, and updated guest rooms that will match the chic, modern, colorful decor of the newly redone Summit Suites. Two new night spots are already open: one is WET, a lounge and bar featuring live music and DJs, located on the gaming floor. The other is Cantina, which offers more than 115 tequilas and small-plate Mexican cuisine. Still to come are updates to the 44,000-square-foot convention center (the resort has 200,000 square feet of meeting and event space in all), the health club and spa, and the Xtreme Sports Bar & Lounge.

The Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe Resort, Spa and Casino completed a $20-million renovation of its 398 guest rooms, Spa Terrace Conference Center, and Sierra Cafe this year. The guest rooms have a new, contemporary, and luxurious "Grand Lodge" style, with new furniture and soft goods, modern showers and backlit mirrors in the bathrooms, locally themed artwork, and media hubs that link laptops to the TVs. The $500,000 upgrade of the seven-room, 3,000-square-foot Spa Terrace Conference Center was completed at the end of 2011, and shares the Grand Lodge look. State-of-the-art audio- visual capability and drop-down screens were added.

After a five-year, $100-million renovation that touched on virtually every portion of the property (most recently the casino last year), the Atlantis Casino Resort Spa in Reno earned another AAA Diamond rating in August, becoming Reno's third AAA Four-Diamond resort. The Atlantis has 50,000 square feet of meeting space, and is connected to the 500,000-square-foot Reno-Sparks Convention Center by a sky bridge.

Planning approval has been given and plans are underway to start work on a new 275-room casino-resort and village, Boulder Bay, on the site of the old Tahoe Biltmore resort on North Lake Tahoe. Along with the hotel, plans call for a mixed-use shopping and dining market, public parks, walking and biking trails in the Crystal Bay area, and a fitness and wellness program in partnership with a local hospital.

The Squaw Valley USA resort is in the midst of phase two of a $50-million capital improvement project that will bring a new restaurant and bar to the heart of the village, remodel the Olympic House sundeck, and transform the base level of Squaw Valley's Olympic House into a new day lodge and family recreation center. Up on the mountain, the Funitel (a 28-person gondola) will be renovated to include the new Funi's Mountaintop Cafe and Market near the world's only ski-in, ski-out Starbucks, which opened in February 2012.

The Northstar California Resort has completed a $30-million capital improvement program that included a new 700-seat, on-mountain restaurant at the top of the resort's Tahoe Zephyr Express Lift, featuring expansive views of the Pacific Crest.

The Kirkwood Mountain Resort on the California side of Lake Tahoe overhauled its on-slope Mountain Club lodgings last year. The accommodations now range from double queen hotel rooms to two-bedroom loft condos. Other facilities include a gym, spa, sauna, and steam and massage rooms. In addition, Kirkwood sold its ski operations to Vail Resorts earlier this year, so Vail's Epic ski passes now work there as well as at Heavenly and Northstar.

The Terry Lee Wells Nevada Discovery Museum opened in the former Reno City Hall building last September. The 67,000-square-foot venue offers a wide range of special event spaces for all meeting sizes. These include the Compass Room (which can accommodate up to 75), the Collaboratory (up to 125), the Picnic Place (up to 150), Atrium (up to 200), and the lobby (up to 200). The full museum can be rented out, and can accommodate up to 1,800 attendees.