While many incentive trips focus on activity and team building, there are many ways to incentivize and rejuvenate your team. A new trend is developing on this front – the idea of a stillness tour. Bringing quiet and stillness into an incentive trip or meeting focuses on removing technology and high stimulus.

Scottsdale, Arizona offers multiple ways for groups to unwind and experience stillness.  

The new $226 million Sycuan Casino Hotel and Resort will open in late spring 2019, and is now ready to book group meetings.

The 12-story luxury hotel tower will include 302 guest rooms with 57 suites. The new event space features over 42,000 square feet of flexible indoor and outdoor space, including an 11,297 sq. ft. event center with a 2,136 sq. ft. stage.

Plans are in the works to update, modernize and expand the America’s Center Convention Complex in St. Louis. Dubbed the “AC Next Gen Project,” the goal of the $175 million project is to secure the facility’s place as an economic and employment driver for the entire region.

According to St. Louis City and County officials, the need to expand the Complex has become critical as cities across the U.S. are making substantial investments in their convention centers as well as taking aggressive steps to lure lucrative meetings and conventions to their communities and regions.

Lion Square Lodge has completed the $1.25 million meeting space renovation it began in May.

The property’s newly renovated meeting and event space has been tailored to meet the needs of businesses, offering five meeting rooms and more than 5,000 square feet of flexible event space that can accommodate groups of 10 upwards to 200. Two of the five rooms offer floor-to-ceiling windows and walkout balcony space overlooking Vail Mountain.

On Sept. 18, Intercontinental San Diego opened for business. The new 19-story, 400-room property overlooks the scenic San Diego bayfront.

For meetings, InterContinental San Diego has 35,000 square feet of flexible indoor space with natural light in every room.

The Pacific Ballroom can hold up to 1,500 attendees in its 12,000-square-foot space that features full-length windows framing Santa Fe Depot and the downtown cityscape. The smaller Bayview Ballroom can hold up to 475. Additional meeting rooms offer options for smaller meetings or breakout sessions.

Located 20 minutes south of Nashville in Franklin's Meridian Cool Springs Business District, the 244-guest-room Hilton Franklin Cool Springs is the area's first full-service hotel built in nearly a decade.

Hilton Franklin Cool Springs offers 244 guest rooms and six suites with floor-to-ceiling windows. The hotel is also home to the area's only roof-level patio, a heated pool and an expansive terrace with fireplace.

Hilton Franklin Cool Springs has 6,236 square feet of flexible meeting space and 2,400 sq. ft. of pre-function space for registration, breaks and catering.

Eau Claire, Wisconsin is full of unique and unusual meeting spaces. On Sept. 22, another venue will be added to the list with the official opening of the long-awaited Pablo Center at the Confluence, the city’s new arts center.

 “Chautauqua” is an Iroquois word that is literally translated either as “a bag tied in the middle” or “two moccasins tied together,” and describes the shape of Lake Chautauqua, in Celoron, New York. Chautauqua Harbor Hotel is a new luxury property on the shores of that lake, in the area that gave rise to the Chautauqua Movement of educational and cultural centers in the late 1800s.

Some of the construction in downtown San Francisco will be ending soon, with a positive impact for event planners and attendees. The $551 million Moscone Center expansion project is due to be completed at the end of 2018.

The expansion adds more than 157,000 gross square feet of flexible meeting space to Moscone North and South and will increase the center's total exhibit space to more than 504,000 sq. ft.

On Aug. 13, Governor Rick Smith declared a state of emergency in seven counties along the Florida Gulf Coast, and the red tide continues to have a negative impact on the state’s shores and beaches. The toxic algae bloom is responsible for a drop in tourism that many local businesses worry will continue.