10 tips of how to organize your team outing in Thailand

Since the covid-19 pandemic has been subdued in recent months, team outings are back on the agenda of executives and businessmen around the world. You may be traveling within Thailand, in this case travel processes and procedures are much easier and arrangements are nearly back to pre-Covid standards.

Yet, if you are traveling to Thailand from a foreign country however, please check the following requirements:

• Check whether immigration bureaucracy has been eased, meaning if there is quarantine free travel to and from the destination of your choice and how many Coivid rapid tests are necessary to fly your team into Thailand and out again. The more tests you need to do, the more complicated will the travel arrangement be.

• Check whether all of your attendees have been double vaccinated and that the specific vaccination has been approved in the country of your destination.

• It is well-known that Phuket has quarantine free arrival, meaning you can stay 7 days in Phuket without quarantine, which is typically enough time for a team outing.

So where in Thailand should your team outing take place?

Thailand is back to square one when it comes to accommodation and team events, nearly 90% of the tourism infrastructure have been whipped out during the pandemic. This can be a good or a bad thing: The positive, is that it is exciting to travel to Thailand again, with many new hotels and resorts opening in the coming months. The bad thing is that Thailand as you have known it won't exist any longer and your will have to be more flexible in terms of your expectations of a smooth event.

Phuket is the first and foremost choice for a team outing, since it has quarantine free arrival, yet Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Hua Hin and Pattaya following soon, expected to welcome travelers quarantine free in December 2021.

How important is our team outing?

Who are you organizing your team outing for? Do you organize your team outing for a team of accountant in your sub-branch or do you fly in top executives from 20 different nationalities. Before you go any further, you should have a good understanding who your participants are and if they are top shots or rather rank and file. This will influence the program and the budget.

What is the very first thing to prepare before announcing a team outing?

Talk with your colleagues, your bosses, your co-workers and find out what sort of outings have been done in the past, if they were popular and what lessons you have learned from past outings. What went well and what didn't. Talk to people who have participated and find out what their experiences were.

We cannot stress this enough but your budget should be set in stone, or you should have at least a very good idea of how much you want to spend, before you start even considering getting quotes from 3rd party suppliers, event organizers and team building experts.

Fin out what you have spent in the past per person and base your budge upon your last year's budget (or two or three years ago).

Should my team bonding include team building activities and if yes, what kind?

Team building activities are popular among executives and done well, they are not cheap. The cheapest is a BBQ night and a bottle of cheap whiskey. But not sure if your executives appreciate this. Team building come in different themes, from exploring the city (Amazing Race), over doing something good and meaningful (CSR) to a competitive event with games on the hotel's garden or beach. Team bonding events are light hearted and fun, while team development workshops come with learning, discussion and debriefing. Every team building activity has a different objective and you should be clear on your objective in order to choose the right activity.

Should my team outing include training?

We think training should always be part of an outing, even if it's just a half-day indoor team development workshop. After two years of meeting people on Zoom, it will not only exciting but also necessary to have important conversations, clarity on certain objectives, peer feed-back that has been procrastinated over years and necessary debates to align your executive team. This cold also be done as part of an internal meeting.

Should my team outing include an internal meeting?

Meetings are sometimes necessary to communicate important objectives, yet they can also be incorporated into a team building event or training events. Think twice if you really want to spend that much money to fly your colleagues into a foreign destination just to spend a day in the meeting room on "boring" power point presentations that could as well have been communicated through Zoom.

Or turn your internal meeting into a fun, interactive and engaging event with Meeting Energie.

Should my team outing include a gala dinner?

Gala dinners with shows, entertainment, costumes, and fancy decoration are only important if you have something real to celebrate: A merger, an acquisition, a great year-end P&L, a successful expansion plan, or you have top shot CEOs form around the world to join. The Casino Royale Theme would be perfect for this. An event with a pool party for young start up teams or a roof top theme dinner with a stellar view over the city.

Alternatively, a simple dinner with some organized team activities or a karaoke night will suffice.

Should I outsource the entire arrangement for the team outing to a third party?

The first thing you should ask yourself is whether you have a person suitable to organize a professional outing that is working full time within your organization. Not an accountant or a HR person, they are ok to organize a BBQ or a Karaoke night (sorry about that).

But a full on event manager with competent communication and outstanding organization skills. Somebody who understands the objectives clearly and can deliver upon the demanding objectives of your management team.

If the budget is reasonably high, consider outsourcing the event to a professional event management firm, a organization who understands all part of the event, the travel, the hospitality, the team building, the training, how to combine all elements into one powerful event experience.

Check out more about team outings on www.teambuildingpackages.com or contact us under +66 84 629 05 07.