How business owners incentivise staff or show appreciation to loyal clients can vary but a thank you for the hard work put in by your team or the loyalty shown to you by long-standing customers won’t go unnoticed. How to go about it can sometimes leave CEOs scratching their heads, however.
Corporate entertainment is always a fun way to reward and team build or to develop an already solid relationship with clients. There are many travel companies that offer this service, taking the hardship out of organising a fun corporate trip away.
Martin Toomey at JWT says the travel firm often gets company owners rewarding regular clients with either Six Nations rugby trips or Formula One weekends as part of its scheduled sports tours. Trips for matches tend to be for one or two nights, while F1 trips are for three or four nights, as tickets are for the whole weekend. For serious rugby fans JWT offers the option of travelling on the Leinster team charter.
“When we run those trips they are usually for one night only, as the team likes to fly home right after the game. But we have also done two-night trips to Leinster games in Parma and Treviso, not going on the team plane,” says Toomey. “The Leinster tours to South Africa involve taking in two games, so are for 10 or 11 days.”
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JWT deals with “quite a few people” who bring staff on trips, Toomey adds: “One guy travels a couple of times a year and brings a few different staff members each time. Another client gets in touch as soon as the dates for the Six Nations and Leinster’s Champions Cup games go live. He will often book 10 spots without giving names – then, as the trip gets closer he will check who his best clients have been in the previous months and put them on to the places for it.
“He will often also book a similar number of places at short notice for the big finals and do the same thing. The price for those trips is often between €700 and €1,200 per person so it’s a big outlay but it seems to work for those guys who want to keep their clients and staff happy.”
Some corporate customers purchase one or two spots on trips and give them away as raffle prizes within their business or to best-performing employees. Those who have chosen this option “found it led to a lot of excitement within the company”, says Toomey.
Becci Franklin of Cassidy Travel sees the increasing difficulty of securing tickets for sporting events as partially responsible for the growth in popularity of such trips.
“Some of the best include an action-packed trip to Cheltenham or Aintree, with multi-day racing, flights and accommodation, or a visit to Wembley Stadium for an NFL game between the New England Patriots and Jacksonville,” she says.
Such trips also provide opportunities to network with other businesses.
“We find a lot of people get chatting to each other from airport check-in onwards and it becomes a good networking opportunity for those who own businesses,” says Toomey.
Rugby is JWT’s most popular sport-centred offering, with F1 “growing fast”, while the company also offers Premier League football trips.
“That’s growing more for corporates as they realise we offer hospitality tickets only for Premier League games,” he adds. “Often we get asked to arrange some extras while abroad, such as coaching sessions, matches against local teams or stadium tours.”
JWT’s most popular Leinster trips are Edinburgh, Treviso and Parma – Edinburgh and Treviso are on the fixture list for the 2024/25 season, Edinburgh on September 19th/20th, and Treviso October 4th/5th. Trips to Champions Cup games, especially in France, fill quickly, says Toomey; those to Wales and Glasgow tend to be a little cheaper, which works well for school groups and clubs that want to travel on the team plane.
Travel companies are also seeing a rise in requests for women’s sports and JWT has begun offering WSL trips to England and trips to Ireland Women’s Six Nations games, something they hope will keep growing in popularity.
Sunway Holidays designs bespoke group-incentive trips all over the world via Priority Groups, a division of Sunway. The company caters to a diverse clientele, creating customised itineraries for groups ranging from five to 500 people.
These include prestigious sporting events; conferences and corporate events, for which comprehensive planning is provided; and overseas team-building trips that include unique activities designed to enhance team cohesion and challenge employees outside their comfort zones, says Sunway CEO Mary Denton.
The company will tailor an experience for every budget, she adds: “We recognise that each client has unique requirements and budget constraints, with spending typically ranging from €1,200 to €15,000 per person.
“Team-building trips, which are especially popular, often see budgets of between €1,200 and €3,000 per person. The goal is to create memorable and impactful experiences that foster team spirit and showcase employee capabilities in diverse settings.
“The duration of team-building trips is three to five days away. Clients who are looking to impress their customers with luxury travel and experiences spend anything from €3,000 to €12,000 per person and the duration of these kinds of trips would generally be five days to eight days.”
Activities offered vary widely and are tailored to the destination. Fun examples include hot-air ballooning, ziplining, themed treasure hunts, ice fishing and whitewater rafting.
“These activities are designed to push participants out of their comfort zones while ensuring enjoyment and engagement,” says Denton. “Team-building events abroad are particularly valuable for employers, providing insights into how their staff perform in unfamiliar environments and how they handle new challenges.
“We excel in crafting innovative ideas that balance fun with developmental goals, making each trip both enjoyable and beneficial.”
So, just how popular is an overseas team-building trip as a way to incentivise staff or reward clients?
“We’ve since a massive increase in interest,” says Toomey. “We did a lot of rugby before, and those clients are discovering that we offer more sports now. We’re also still finding that people don’t know about the opportunity to fly with the Leinster team and are very excited when they find out that’s an option.”
He admits that, as event tickets can be expensive, such packages can be “pricey enough when compared to a regular holiday”.
“But the excitement for getting to a big game brings something more to a trip abroad,” he adds.
