Alaska Media Road Show 2025 took place at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas. This is a recap of the properties, destinations and adventure tours based in Alaska that attended the event.
Alaska Travel Industry Association recently held its annual Alaska Media Road Show at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas for a few days of connecting and informing the wider media world about what the state has to offer, from tours that take to the skies to land-based tours with steep climbs and learning lessons about flora and fauna–and plenty of experiences in between.
Alaska Helicopter Tours
Alaska Helicopter Tours flies around two locations: Seward, a coastal city of 2,800 near Kenai Fjords National Park, and Knik Glacier Valley, 45 minutes north of Anchorage. Both tours offer something a little different.
The year-round Knik Valley location offers several tour durations and multiple landings. A crowd favorite from the Knik Valley tour is the two-hour Grand Knik Tour, which features three landings, the last of which is the pilot’s choice. Other adventures include glacier ice climbing on frozen waterfalls and ice walls, and glacier paddleboarding.
Seward is the more recent tour offering. Only available May through mid-September, the tour offers dogsled tours, iceberg tours and heli hiking tours. Tour operators can hold as many as six passengers at a time in their largest helicopter and three in their smallest. Alaska Helicopter Tours’ base in Knik River Valley also features lodging in the form of private cabins and the five-bedroom Crown Mountain House.
Pursuit Alaska Collection
Pursuit is a collection of lodging and adventure tours that operates throughout the United States and the Canadian Rockies. In Alaska, Pursuit has several lodgings that are perfect for groups: Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge, Seward Windsong Lodge, Denali Cabins, Denali Backcountry Lodge and Kenai Fjords Wilderness Lodge.
Several of these Alaskan destinations feature indoor and outdoor spaces. The 212-room Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge offers incredible views of Denali, North America’s tallest mountain. The property features five indoor spaces—the largest, Foraker Room, holds up to 170 guests—and two dining locations, one of which, Homestead Kitchen, features a 40-person outdoor deck.
The 216-room Seward Windsong Lodge features three indoor spaces, outdoor spaces and two dining options. Kenai Fjords National Park is right next door and groups can tour the waters through Kenai Fjord Tours, which offers private cruises for up to 136 guests. The charters journey around glaciers and aquatic wildlife like whales and puffins.
Read More: Notes from the Road: Anchorage, Alaska
Seabourn
Seabourn is a cruise line encompassing boutique, ultra-luxury cruises. Its Alaskan routes feature eight-day to 15-day cruises through the Alaskan Inside Passage and Canadian Inside Passage.
Given the ship’s size, compared to the behemoths other cruise lines offer, Seabourn’s fleet is able to adventure throughout areas other ships can’t such as the Inian Islands and Alert Bay, where passengers might get a sighting of humpback whales and brown bears.
Seabourn’s Expedition Team makes the cruise yet more intimate, which includes naturalists, marine biologists, ornithologists, geologists and historians who can provide education on the region while on board and in the field. The company partners with Starlink so making calls and checking the occasional email is a breeze.
Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show
Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show (GALS) is a one-hour show that has been in operation since 2000 in downtown, one block from the cruise ship docks. The lumberjacks in the show are outside of the show. GALS has up to six shows daily, during which its lumberjacks—real world-class lumberjacks who compete around the world—compete in 12 events.
Attendees who want to grub while they watch the show can add the crab feast to their show selection. Outside of the show, attendees can get competitive in the axe-throwing competition (group winners compete against lumberjacks) and cool down at one of two of GALS’ dining rooms.
Next April, GALS will open its second location in Ketchikan at the port of Ward Cove.
Borealis Basecamp
Open from mid-August through early April and 20 miles outside of Fairbanks, Borealis Basecamp offers a beautiful experience in which groups can engage. The accommodations consist of 36 igloos, eight cubes and one cube suite. The igloos provide the best way to view the northern lights from inside the room, they each feature clear roofs that stretch 16 feet across.
Additional amenities include adventures such as dog mushing, snowmobiling, fat-tire biking, reindeer experiences, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing and more. The property also has two restaurants and a cafe on the property.
Camp Denali
Located in Kantishna, the 19-cabin Camp Denali is in the middle of Denali National Park, home to Denali. Along with Denali, the cabins and park sit six million acres of forest, rivers and glaciers.
Camp Denali has two spaces for potential groups: the 60-person dining room and the 30-person lodge. With their rustic feel and beautiful views, a trip here is certain to be one of the more memorable ones.
Camp Denali offers guided group hikes with expert naturalists and educators. There are three options for guided hikes: strenuous for those who want long distances and steep climbs, moderate, for those who want adventure at a slower pace and foray for those who want to take it slow and have a deep dive into the surrounding terrain.
Fairbanks
Owing to Alaska’s northern location, many major cities experience days and nights that are over 20 hours, but Fairbanks is one of the cities that has extended periods of time without sun–several weeks, in fact.
It’s summer experience the inverse of this, seeing 70 days of complete sunlight; at its peak, during the summer solstice, the city hosts the Midnight Sun Festival in downtown, where 30,000 people attend live performances, food, and the annual midnight baseball game. This unique aspect of the city makes it a special destination for meeting professionals to bring their groups.
The city is also home to several convention centers and venues to host your next meeting or event. The 5,100-seat Carlson Center is the second-largest arena in the state, just behind Sullivan Arena in Anchorage. Westmark Fairbanks Hotel & Conference Center is another great option for meeting professionals. At 400 guest rooms and more than 17,000 sq. ft of meeting space.
