Are you looking to plan a corporate trip, but aren’t sure where to get started?
Planning a corporate trip is a huge undertaking, whether you’re traveling outside of the city or outside of the country.
If you’re currently feeling overwhelmed by all of the planning you have to do, you’ve come to the right place.
Check out this guide to learn the top corporate travel planning tips.
1. Figure Out What Your Employees Would Enjoy
First things first, you need to figure out the type of trip that your employees would most enjoy.
There’s a world of opportunities out there outside of your corporate office, and it’s your job to figure out what will appeal to the largest percentage of people.
Obviously, it can be difficult to fulfill everyone’s needs, but to figure out what the majority of your employees would enjoy, we suggest conducting a survey.
No matter what, you want to make sure that you choose an environment that promotes connection building.
2. Determine the Purpose of the Trip
In addition to figuring out what type of trip your employees will enjoy the most, you also need to determine the purpose of the trip.
For example, is the main purpose of your trip to build teamwork amongst your employees? Or, are you hoping to attract overseas guests? Or, maybe you’re hoping to establish valuable connections amongst departments.
Whatever your motivation is, you should figure out your event goals early on. This will dictate not only the itinerary but also the destination.
3. Set Your Budget
Before you make a big announcement about where the company trip is going to be, you first need to set a budget.
The last thing you want is for your employees to get their hopes up about leaving the country, only to find that you’re taking a trip one city over.
When creating your budget, you need to factor in transportation costs, accommodation costs, activity costs, and meal costs.
4. Consider the Duration
In order to keep your trip under the set budget and well-organized, it’s important that you set the duration of your trip.
While the duration of the trip will depend greatly on your budget, we suggest aiming for 4 nights and 5 days. This should provide enough time for your employees to have fun and bond and to accomplish the trip’s goals.
5. Choose a Destination
Once you figure out the duration of your trip, it’s time to decide on a destination.
If you’re looking to go overseas for your trip, keep in mind that while it might be cheaper to fly to Europe, accommodation and other everyday costs will be expensive. On the other hand, traveling to Asia may cost more money, but your day to day expenses will be a lot cheaper.
Your destination of choice should also depend greatly on the duration of the trip. If you’re only traveling for 4 to 5 days, a trip overseas may be fruitless, as you’ll spend half the time traveling and trying to get over your jet lag.
6. Plan Far Ahead
Corporate trips can be a hard nut to crack.
When planning a local corporate event, you have the luxury of working with local vendors whom you already have existing connections with.
Even if there are no language barriers, you have excellent communication skills, and you have years of experience with trip planning, running a multi-day event in a new place can be incredibly tough.
We suggest giving yourself at least 6 months to plan your big trip if it’s going to be overseas.
7. Book Accommodation Wisely
When booking accommodation, you obviously want to provide your employees with the best hotel possible.
However, it’s important to understand that “best” doesn’t always mean the most luxurious hotel in the city. In addition to choosing somewhere with nice amenities, you also want to make sure you choose somewhere that’s central.
Also, consider how you want to allocate your budget. If you blow the majority of your budget on accommodation, then you may not have enough money left over for all the fun activities you want to do with your team.
So, try to find a happy medium, and also make sure to look into hotel discounts.
8. Work With Employees to Figure Out an Itinerary
When you plan a trip for your employees, the daily itinerary is a very important factor.
Ideally, you want to create a good balance of team building activities, free time, and work time (if you plan to network or make business connections on this trip).
While it’s up to you to find the balance, you should survey your employees when it comes to deciding what to for team building activities.
While your options for activities will be highly dependent on where you go, adventure activities are almost always a hit.
Some adventure activities we suggest looking into include:
- Ziplining
- Whitewater rafting
- Kayaking
- Hiking
- Scavenger hunts
If your team isn’t the adventurous type, here are some city-type activities that you can look into:
- Escape rooms
- City tours
- Brewery tours
- Cooking classes
If you’re going outside of the country, we also suggest adding as many cultural activities as possible.
9. Don’t Let It End There
Corporate trips can be great for making memories that will last a lifetime.
However, don’t forget that one of the major goals of a corporate trip is to boost company morale.
To keep your employees’ spirits up after the trip ends, you can organize post-event seminars, run a photo-sharing contest, or survey your attendees about what they’d like to do for the next big corporate trip.
Corporate Travel Planning: Are You Ready for Your Trip?
With these corporate travel planning tips in mind, you’ll be well on your way to creating a memorable experience for your employees.
If you enjoyed this article, please check back in with our blog for more event planning tips and tricks.