Smart Meetings

At 5,500 feet in elevation, the city enjoys 310 days of sunshine annually. Brilliant turquoise skies are often sprinkled with multicolored hot-air balloons rising from the high desert floor into cool mornings. Streaking the skies pink and orange, sunsets are legendary as they light up the Sandia Mountains and fade to starlight behind Cabezon Peak across the valley.

Add to that the gaudy flying skirts of Mexican folkloric and Spanish flamenco dancers, as well as the soul-stirring drums and chants of Indian pow wows, and the magic of the Southwest is as irresistible today as it was centuries ago.

Walls from the first Spanish-built building, the twin-spired, terra-cotta-toned San Felipe de Neri church, still stand in Old Town, the historic and spiritual heart of the city. Visitors wander around the old plaza and the narrow streets to 300-year-old adobe buildings and colonial-era houses that are now shops, galleries and artists’ studios.

In Old Town and throughout the city, hungry visitors relax with their margaritas on tree-shaded restaurant patios to enjoy the chili-spiced cuisine for which New Mexico is famous: blue-corn enchiladas, succulent cornmeal wrapped tamales and chile rellenos, with honey-dipped sopapillas for dessert.

Reflecting the city’s popularity as a meeting destination, planners will find that nearly every major hotel in town has recently undergone extensive renovation and/or expansion (Albuquerque CVB; abqcvb.org). Of the more than 14,000 hotel rooms in the city, a whopping 9,000 of them are within walking distance of the Albuquerque Convention Center (albuquerquecc.com), and the farthest hotels in the metro area are only 15 minutes away. The performance site for big-name entertainers, the center can host 9,000-plus  attendees in more than 600,000 sq. ft. of venues including a 350-seat auditorium, more than two dozen meeting rooms, one of the largest ballrooms in town and exhibit space and banquet rooms. Groups booking 500 hotel rooms, and food and beverage service, get free meeting space.

National Hispanic Cultural Center (nhccnm.org) has pleasant outdoor event spaces, such as a sculpture garden, patios and lawns, and the 20,000-square-foot Plaza Mayor, where Latino, Spanish and Native American dance and musical performances take place for groups and for the public. Available for a variety of events are a ballroom, classrooms, the outdoor spaces and the art museum.    

Getting There

 Albuquerque International Sunport  - among airlines providing nonstop service from 29 major cities  are America West, American, Continental, Delta, Frontier, Mesa, Northwest, Rio Grande Air, Southwest and United. The city center is no more than 15 minutes from the airport.
  

Not To Be Missed

Sky City Cultural Center and Haaku Museum and the Sky City Pueblo (acomazuni.com) - atop a sheer-walled, 370-foot sandstone bluff overlooking the Acoma Valley, the home of the Acoma people for 2,000 years.

Pueblo Deco-style KiMo Theater  (cabq.gov/kimo) - is a restored artifact of the “picture palace” era, with elaborate Pueblo Indian ornamentation and vivid, period murals and decorations.

Old Town Plaza - buy a braid of bright red chili peppers to take home, bargain for a turquoise bracelet or a Navajo rug crafted by a Native American artisan

Relax under an umbrella with a margarita and a tamale lunch in the historic Casa de Ruiz at the Church Street Café.