It may be home to nuclear research and space travel, but Jenny Southan finds the US state also offers event planners a rich array of green-friendly incentives
New Mexico may not be on your radar as a thriving business destination, but its credentials, particularly in the fields of scientific research and defence, are surprising. Not only is this southwest US state rich in oil and gas, but it’s home to one of the biggest caches of nuclear warheads on the planet, buried deep beneath the mountains on the outskirts of its largest city and main business hub, Albuquerque.
The area is also home to the headquarters of Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories, responsible for the first atomic bomb test in 1945 (shortly before it was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki). Kirtland Air Force Base, Aero Mechanical Industries, Intel and German power giant Schott Solar are all located here too.
The Land of Enchantment, as the state is known, is probably so named less for its nuclear heritage than its magnificent landscape, something that has become a draw for filmmakers from around the world – they also enjoy 300 days of sunshine and generous tax breaks (although these may soon be cut).
As a result, according to Ann Lerner, director of the Albuquerque Film Office, Albuquerque has earned the nickname “LA of the southwest”, with movies made here including True Grit, Crazy Heart and No Country for Old Men.
But dreams are not only becoming reality on the big screen. Some 280km south of Albuquerque, not far from the town of Truth and Consequences, Virgin Galactic’s Spaceport America is set to be the world’s first base for commercial space flights. After nearly two decades, it is due for completion later this year, with tickets for the first public “suborbital hop” having been sold for about US$200,000 each.
With a population of just over two million, equating to 16 people per square mile, New Mexico has millions of acres of untouched wilderness to explore. And given that tourism generates about US$6 billion a year here, it’s no surprise that “responsible travel” is taking off.
As Sandy Cunningham, managing partner of Eco New Mexico, a new division of the tourist board, points out: “Eco-tourism is one of the most rapidly growing segments in the worldwide tourism industry.” The body is now taking bookings from groups for “eco incentive” trips, offering a new option for event planners who want to combine fun with something a little worthier.
So what is eco-tourism? According to the tourist board, it’s about “authentic and engaging experiences that offer travellers off-the-beaten-path adventures that connect them with natural beauty and indigenous traditions”. Excursions have been designed to meet the 37 voluntary standards set out by the Tourism Sustainability Council (sustainabletourismcriteria.org), and are based around “effective sustainability planning, maximising social and economic benefits for the local community, enhancing cultural heritage, and reducing negative impacts to the environment”.
Cunningham says: “Eco-tourism is about fewer people, paying a little bit more and staying for longer. It’s also about getting away from phones, faxes and email, reconnecting with people and nature, and really being absorbed in the wilderness.”
Event organisers will find a growing number of environmentally friendly venues vying for their attention. The 107-room Andaluz hotel (hotelandaluz.com) in Albuquerque reopened in March last year after a four-year refurbishment. It boasts solar panels on the roof, a comprehensive recycling scheme, and building standards that have put it on track to earn gold-standard LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification. It also has 560 sqm of meeting space.
Just outside the city is Los Poblanos (lospoblanos.com), a historic inn and cultural centre set among 25 acres of lavender fields. It has 20 guestrooms and 460 sqm of event space, while its organic farm cultivates more than 75 varieties of fruit and vegetables. Larry Atchison, vice-president of convention sales, services and sports at the Albuquerque Convention and Visitors Bureau, says: “We have venues that work well for all types of incentive groups but Los Poblanos is particularly good for special VIPs – you can go out and pick your lunch from the gardens and the staff will prepare any cuisine you like.”
About an hour up the road is the state capital of Santa Fe, one of the oldest cities in the US. It was the first place to adopt the Architecture 2030 Challenge, which aims to make the country’s building industry carbon neutral in 20 years. Its 6,700 sqm convention centre, open since 2008, has gold LEED status.
A few kilometres away in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains is Encantado (encantadoresort.com). A two-year-old complex of 65 low-lying casitas set in 23 hectares of land, it has a philosophy of “responsible luxury”. Environmental measures range from installing energy-efficient fixtures and composting kitchen waste to using battery-operated GEM cars for transporting guests around the grounds. It has a 300-capacity ballroom, while its top-class eatery Terra is joining the likes of Los Poblanos and Santa Fe’s Restaurant Martin (restaurantmartinsantafe.com) in producing inventive American cuisine crafted from organic, locally sourced ingredients.
Getting out of the cities and into the back country doesn’t take long on America’s long, straight roads, which will take you through pink deserts dotted with scrub, past rivers, chasms and the dramatic rock formations that US artist Georgia O’Keeffe loved so much. The landscape tends to be flat until it rises into dense forest at the base of mighty peaks, which means there is all manner of excursions to be had in the great outdoors.
Stuart Wilde, a conservationist and Eco New Mexico-affiliated guide with big hands, a broad smile and encyclopaedic knowledge, says what is available depends on the season.
“I start in March down in the Rio Grande gorge and do natural history and cultural anthropology tours with visits to 1,000-year-old rock art sites,” he says. “In May I shift gears and do mountain trips, and when the leaves fall off the trees I go back into the desert. Then I do snow-shoe tours in winter.”
Having a good guide such as Wilde is essential, and the tourist board has forged relationships with many other knowledgeable locals. Still, Cunningham says: “Native Americans are the original eco-tourism experts because they have always had such a deep appreciation of the land and the importance of conservation and preserving wildlife.”
There are 22 Native American tribes in New Mexico and visiting a pueblo such as Taos (110km north of Santa Fe), with its distinctive mud and clay adobe-style buildings, is mutually rewarding. Wilde says: “Eco-tourism is a way we can encourage traditional communities to honour and respect their culture and still have a form of economic development that isn’t based on the casino model.” (Gambling in the state is only legal on Indian land.)
At the moment, there are two wilderness regions that Eco New Mexico is offering incentive packages to – Gila in the west and Taos in the north. Experiences in each range from fishing, horse riding, rafting and star-gazing to mountain biking, rock climbing, photography and bathing – west of Taos, the Ojo Caliente mineral springs, resort and spa (ojospa.com) is a rustic oasis in the barren desert, perfect for the end of a hard day in the dirt. It has 12 luxury Pueblo suites with kiva fireplaces and 36 lower category bedrooms. Its meeting spaces including the Adobe Round Barn for 150 people.
One of the best things to try in the Taos region is llama trekking. Wilde owns Wild Earth Llama Adventures, a family-run company offering one- to four-day hikes in the Southern Rockies. The beasts of burden carry your food, luggage, water and equipment – but before you ask, no, you can’t ride them, even if you get tired.
You need to be relatively fit to take part in a hike and the air is thin – Santa Fe is more than 2,000 metres above sea level – so watch out for altitude sickness. Happily, Wilde can tailor treks to suit the group. Participants are paired up and assigned a llama and a position to maintain within the ranks (Raj the llama prefers to be at the back).
After a couple of hours on a forest trail you will have learnt how to spot wild oregano, edible mushrooms and berries, and the kinds of animals that are native to the area – if you are lucky, you might see the claw marks of a black bear on a tree, or hear the howl of a rare grey wolf at night.
“When people are out on a multi-day expedition then they are working a little bit harder, hiking five or six miles, and making camp at 11,000ft. It’s on the middle days that climbing the big mounds begins,” says Wilde, who frequently organises corporate incentive and reward programmes. “I have taken out everyone from a group of Starbucks regional managers to 20 or 30 insurance salesmen for an experience like this.”
Still, he emphasises that eco adventures are about “small groups and intimate close encounters with nature”, which means coach-loads of happy campers are a no-no. “The areas of wilderness we operate in have group size limits to retain the integrity of the eco system, so 14 people is the maximum. But there are other places to go if you are a bigger group,” he says.
For anyone used to the frenetic pace of city life and gazing at a computer screen for 12 hours a day, it’s remarkable how quickly those stresses and strains slip away when you’re navigating streams, panning for gold and breathing in pine-scented air. “It’s not long before the masks start to drop, and all of a sudden you see people start to become children again,” Wilde says.
“My hope is that people get a little recharge so they can bring some magic back to whatever nine-to-five office experience they might have – and that even though they’re across the ocean in the Rocky Mountains, they are going to find something that reminds them of home and makes them appreciate their own backyard.”
CONTACTS
- newmexico.org/ecotourism
- itsatrip.org
- santafe.org
- llamaadventures.com
- snowshoetaos.com
- taospueblo.com
- architecture2030.org
- spaceportamerica.com
- virgingalactic.com
GETTING THERE
Albuquerque is served indirectly from London by American Airlines (AA), Continental, United and Delta. Visit businesstraveller.com/tried-and-tested for reviews of AA return flights on the London-Dallas-Albuquerque route, and hotels in Santa Fe.
