Artist's rendering shows the design of the lobby of the Starr Pass Marriott Resort & Spa, which will become the largest hotel in Southern Arizona, with 575 rooms. Rendering courtesy Marriott

Site of Marriott Resort is near top of Starr Pass Road. Photo courtesy ShutterHawk@gci-net.com

Enticing groups to hold their meetings at the yet-to-open Starr Pass Marriott Resort & Spa takes more than the usual sales pitch. It also means asking meeting planners to use their imagination.

The resort is still more than a year away from completion, but a marketing team is already moving aggressively to book business and using renderings to help woo potential guests.

By the time it opens in November 2004, the resort expects to have commitments from organizations to stay and hold meetings there, said Mike Kass, director of marketing.

"We're trying to get those groups, conventions that were never able to come to Tucson before because we didn't have the facilities to support them. We have a much bigger hurdle," he said.

The Starr Pass Marriott Resort & Spa, a $170 million project, will include 575 rooms, 66,000 square feet of convention and meeting space, and a 20,000-square-foot spa. The largest hotel in Southern Arizona at present is The Westin La Paloma Resort & Spa with 487 rooms.

"Not only do we have to sell the resort, we're also selling Tucson as a destination to people. It's a much longer process that we're going through," Kass said.

So far, the team's efforts have paid off. Kass shied away from disclosing details, but he said there are already gatherings scheduled to be held at the resort. Most will be hosted by associations and two-thirds of the total are new to Tucson.

"The interest level is stronger than we anticipated at this point," Kass said. "It's beyond general curiosity."

Marketing a resort before it is built is a common strategy, especially for those the size of Starr Pass Marriott. It takes time to create a buzz among customers, build an image for the resort, and face the competition.

"If you're going to open something like that, you can't just do it quietly and wonder when it opens whether someone would come by," said Sidney Levy, head of the marketing department at the University of Arizona's Eller College of Business and Public Administration.

"They don't want to limp into this," he added. "When they come to the grand opening it really should be a big bang."

Starr Pass Marriott's marketing team is now gunning for meetings in 2005 through 2009. Much of the legwork is in the Midwest because many associations are based there, and groups on the East Coast tend to choose Florida as their destination.

The team will begin courting leisure travelers next year, closer to the opening date.

Michael Bolchalk of Michael Bolchalk Marketing, Advertising and Public Relations said drumming up leisure visitors should be easier because that segment has proved to be more resilient compared to convention business, even in a lackluster economy.

At the early stages of marketing, "it's probably 98 percent driven toward corporate or association meetings because they make decisions far enough in advance," said Steve Shalit, general manager of The Westin La Paloma Resort & Spa, who has made pre-opening sales pitches in the past. "A leisure traveler can make decisions two days in advance."

The inherent challenge for Starr Pass Marriott is that it lacks guest rooms, conference areas and restaurants to show customers. Kass said a model of a guest room will be available for viewing in an office in La Placita, but that won't be ready until the end of August.

For now, he escorts them to the site to help them visualize the resort and often spends whole days with meeting planners showing them around Tucson. 

"They'll probably have a harder time because people like to see what they're going to get," said Carole Myers, meeting planner for the Society of Gynecologic Surgeons in St. Louis.

After a visit here, the association put the upcoming resort in the running for its three-day meeting in 2005, which is expected to bring 265 to 300 attendees.

"I was a little worried that the resort wasn't built yet. Our meeting is going to be in March 2005," she said. But a sales representative convinced her that Marriott is a veteran at launching new hotels on time.

The Marriott brand itself is expected to help the resort stake out its territory. Meeting planners are familiar with the name and have come to rely on the chain for their group travel needs, Levy said.

On the other hand, it could conjure images of being a pragmatic, business-focused hotel, which might not be what the resort's marketing team is trying to sell.

"They have a backlog of people who feel comfortable with them and would like to go to a new facility of theirs," Levy said.

But "they're part of a large chain, so there's a sense of standardization in your mind."

Joyce Gambino, director of meetings for the Southern Thoracic Surgical Association in Chicago, is among the planners familiar with what Marriott offers. 

"They came here into my office and made a very nice presentation of what exactly they're planning on doing, what the building will look like," she said.

Although the resort and spa are under construction, Gambino said the association was unconcerned because of the Marriott name. In evaluating the resort, she focused intently on its proximity to Tucson International Airport 

While the association has yet to choose a location for its 2006 meeting, Gambino said the board is leaning toward coming here to the new resort. "I was very impressed with the city of Tucson," she said.

Indeed, Kass, who previously worked in sales for Camelback Inn Marriott in Scottsdale, stressed that the city is also at the center of his team's strategy. Guests will see a panoramic view of Tucson from the resort, which is being built with authentic Southwestern design in mind, he said.

"It's really meant to look like it belongs there," Kass said. "It actually adds to the setting, it doesn't detract from it."