We’ve been travelling a lot recently to see new places and meet our suppliers, and following these recent trips we got inspired to share with your this article. This time, we want to talk about the benefits of incentives and team building programmes for your company.
In Italy, there are so many opportunities, and desired places to travel, but don’t be confused if you’ve been to Italy before and visited the most famous sites with your friends or family. A leisure trip to Italy might inspire your company incentive and team building, but leisure destinations might not be the right fit. Group travel, both private and corporate, should be planned in the most appropriate way that will benefit your company’s objectives.
Key components for successful incentives
We just love incentives! The best thing we love about them is that with just few key components we can make a big difference – be it bringing the team together and fostering creativity, making the delegates feel important and taken care of.
There are four key components that will make an incentive successful:
- It has to be a reward for the team or a client
- It has to be memorable
- It has to provide an exclusive, once in a lifetime experience
- It has to take place in the right location
So how do we translate all of the above into practice? Keep reading.
Planning incentives
If you are planning incentive short haul, meaning that you are based in Europe and want to have your incentive in Europe, then you should plan for 3 – 5 days trip to Italy. If you are based long haul, for example want to travel from the US to Europe, than 5 – 7 days will be a standard duration.
All the activities that you plan to do at the destination should be well allocated to provide a real and memorable experience rather than a “touch and go”. If that’s the latter, delegates will not have the chance to feel important, rewarded and appreciated, but instead just dragged around and frustrated.
To avoid this chaos, we recommend organising incentive and team building off the beaten track and off season in Italy. After working for many years in the travel and events industry, we wanted to develop an innovative approach to discover Italy by going away from the mainstream destinations. The solution was to develop the path less travelled and offer the travellers to see different sides of Italy. Our destinations and suppliers are handpicked, based on our own concept of the best season region combination.
How Italian Special Occasions DMC elaborates a team building programme
The aim of a team building activity is to help the team to collaborate with each other through playful and engaging activities. When planned properly, team building should motivate, teach how to compromise, improve internal and external communication, strengthen feeling of belonging, enhance performance and increase productivity, and all while having fun in a beautiful surrounding.
Great results can be achieved through experiential and playful activities because it allows the delegates to be 100% in the moment. Furthermore, attendees can experiment and try new things outside their usual environment, and their progress will be all based on “learning by doing” and reinforcing the team spirit and the message “we are part of a team, and the team is part of us.”
Our internal Consultant and Team Coach Noemi works with us on a regular basis to create and design local activities. For example, working in a studio of a master artist with an artisan who will show and teach the group his/her craft. In that case the group will be split into small teams and will learn different handcraft activities. At the end of each activity the team coach will give individual and group feedback on the end results and recommendations for improvement.
Another favourite and seasonal activity is harvest or participating in the olive oil production. This activity takes the delegates from the field to the factory and to the store to see the final product (and take away as a souvenir).
Stimulate the five senses
There is one thing in common for all activities that we do, and this is incorporating the five senses. By using the five senses people can stimulate their creativity in the digital age. As much as technology makes our lives easier, it also takes away our creative spirit, so these workshops are perfect to get back the creative and playful spark as of small kids!
By working with local artists in a new environment will help the company to widen its horizons, by exploring new working techniques, new cultures, new flavours and seeing new places. This concept is strongly linked to our concept of seasonality and experiencing Italy off the beaten path.
Work with Italian Special Occasions DMC can help you achieve your objectives
It’s important to invest in a well-planned incentive or team building programme that will achieve the desired results. The destination will be picked based on your event objectives. Working with a DMC can help the company save money and time (especially when time is money!). We wrote about it in our recent post in more details.
We have an extensive knowledge of the country and can guide you in the best way, but honestly, if you want to do the incentives or team building in Italy just because it’s a beautiful country and think that you can fit all the sightseeing in one day, then you better come here on holidays. But if you want to let your team experience the true Italy, spend quality time with the locals, dedicate time to explore the local area and its culture, then you should allocate more time for your incentive or team building to have higher returns on investment.
On this note, we want to conclude this article with sharing with you a destination tip for incentives and team building in Italy.
Porto Venere in Liguria
Our recommendation is Porto Venere in Southern Liguria. This small and charming village that is a meeting point between the Cinque Terre and the Gulf of the Poets is one of our favourite hidden gems for incentives and team building in Liguria. Back in the days it was the place of choice to set foot in this region for many famous poets, and hence it got its name “the Gulf of the Poets”. This small and charming village is best to visit during the months of March, April, May, September and October.
The area is characterised by its colourful fishing villages, clear water and marine reserves and selection of hiking routes. From Porto Venere your group can venture on day trips by boat to the Cinque Terre, Portofino, Lerici and Carrara.
Grand Hotel Portovenere is suitable to accommodate groups and benefits from a strategic and panoramic location in Porto Venere. Before being transformed to a hotel in 1970 it was convent. When renovating it was important to keep the original architecture features so the final result was an aesthetic design and understated elegance. It has a total of 56 rooms with each room perfectly capturing the essence of the region and of the history of the building.
Incentives and team building in Porto Venere
When Grand Hotel Portovenere is your base for the stay, it’s easy to explore the entire region by boat to soak its beauty. Be it by a small fisher’s boat or a luxury speed boat, the experience will be designed according to event needs and based on group size.
If for another day your group wants to stay local, guests of Grand Hotel Portovenere also can benefit from the access to the partner private Beach Club to enjoy an exclusive VIP experience by the sea side, with all catering facilities being taken care of at the beach.
This little gem of unspoiled nature will leave your attendees speechless. Bringing your groups to Porto Venere will be very rewarding, memorable, as well as it will make your delegates feel taken care of and rewarded. They will bring many memories home because they will experience Italy like locals.
