Corporate retreats made simple.

A corporate retreat can be perceived as so much more than just ‘a vacation’. It stands as a work event where employees step away from their day-to-day work to gather, regroup, connect, and consider larger issues facing the business.

Deviating from the daunting prospect of extensive PowerPoints during quarterly planning sessions at your office building; think about reflecting upon those objectives during a hike in breathtaking landscapes or while practicing mindfulness on a warm, sunny beach.

Corporate retreats are typically organized focusing on specific goals like recalibration of business strategies or igniting inspiration within the workforce regarding new projects. And we can’t overlook the far-reaching impact such events have in fostering staff morale and reinforcing distinct company culture attributes among the team members.

So next time if someone associates 'corporate retreat' merely with luxurious outings – remember it ensures that 'work' is a place your employees want to be and underscores your business'  overarching purpose or mission.

We realize this is a wishy-washy answer, but the reality is that properly budgeting for a corporate retreat will vary dramatically depending on several factors such as destination, where your team is traveling from, size of the team, activities planned, and accommodation type.

A general guideline however is to expect $750/pp per day for domestic retreats, or $1,000/pp per day for international retreats; with all expenses included within that number (flights, accommodations, meals & entertainment, fees, etc.). Take a look at our budgeting cheat sheet to learn more.

Generally, best practices for the length of retreats tend to fall between 3-5 nights, including travel days. We typically don’t recommend only 2 nights, as the first day is usually lost to travel time and people arriving throughout the day, leaving little time to allocate towards ‘content’ outside of a late evening Welcome Reception & Dinner. That leaves only 1 day for meetings, activities, or team building, which is a poor ROI on the investment of flying everyone to a destination!

Ideally, you want to have 2 or 3 full days with everyone together, and keep in mind that on departure days, it’s hard to plan for much outside of breakfast, as people will have scattered departures throughout the day, and you wouldn’t want to program something only to have a bunch of people miss it due to an early flight! Hence why 3-5 nights is ideal.We’ve put together a blog post on how to create the perfect offsite agenda for your team, including a few sample templates to suit whatever your goals and objectives are!

Retreats serve as an opportunity for companies to allocate dedicated time and space for teams to break free from the everyday routine, and spend some time focusing on celebrating milestones or achievements, brainstorming new ideas, or just kicking back with each other and bonding somewhere new and exciting.

These types of getaways are also great occasions for sharing a new bold vision or strategy, fostering deeper relationships among colleagues and/or boosting engagement among employees through team-building activities, or just letting folks enjoy some time together in an inspiring destination, after a successful year!

That is a somewhat complicated question, and it involves considering various factors like; where everyone is coming from, ease and cost of transportation to the destinations under consideration, what ‘style’ of retreat you are looking for (e.g. Sun & Sand or urban city center?), and budget obviously.

The best approach to figuring out where your retreat should take place is to start by sitting down and making a checklist of all the important factors in your ‘ideal’ destination. From there, check out our retreat location page to find some inspiration, and don’t hesitate to reach out if you want some guidance!

Planning a retreat can seem like an overwhelming task, but don’t fret! We’ve got you covered. Start by setting clear objectives for the retreat; is this to get your team together for work/meetings? Or more to celebrate a recent milestone or achievement? This will influence both the agenda and destination choice for your retreat. Next, determine the length of retreat you would like, and a rough agenda to serve as the framework for what your days will look like. From there, you’ll want to figure out a few locations or destinations you’d like to consider, to compare ease of travel and costs.

After you’ve narrowed down the destination and length, it’s time to choose the host accommodations. Hotel? Villa? Or a Beachfront resort? After that, you’ll want to focus on filling out the day-to-day itinerary with content that align with your goals — this can range from professional development workshops and guest speakers to leisure and team-bonding opportunities. If you’re looking for more guidance, take a look at our ‘10 steps to plan a fun and effective offsite’.

Moniker is a ‘one-stop shop’ for corporate retreat planning. We can help with everything in the ‘pre-trip’ process from helping you find the right destination and host accommodation, negotiating the contracts on your behalf, booking flights, and then taking care of the Registration and attendee tracking. The planning process leading up to the event includes figuring out the agenda, how to fill each day, coordinating the work sessions and meetings, overseeing A/V and breakout rooms, as well as the fun side of things like team-building activities, optional excursions, and tours, and the evening events.

We also manage all of the details and logistics on-site and during execution. This means the arrivals process, helping everyone get checked into their rooms (and ensuring the cool swag is delivered!), and managing all the setup and oversight of your meetings and social events. Finally, we will also track all of the expenses in our line-itemized budgets, keeping a detailed record of all the receipts and invoices associated with your program so it is crystal clear how every dime is being spent. In summary, we can pretty much do anything you can dream of, and probably a lot more that you haven’t even thought of yet!

We’re committed to making the process as seamless, easy, and fun as possible, and our team of true travel and event professionals will be with you throughout the entire process from the first Kick-Off Call, straight through the on-site execution, and cleaning up the loose ends afterward during the reconcile process. 

Typically, the type of trips we plan fall into one of three categories; (1) Retreats (a mix of work and play), (2) Meetings (mostly work, a few dinners here and there), and (3) Incentive Trips (almost entirely ‘play’, with little or no work involved). We do not plan small team offsites, single-day events, nor health and wellness retreats. Not because we don’t like them, but because we know what we’re good at and are committed to being the best in our industry at doing what we do best. 

The biggest difference between us and some of ‘the other guys’ is our commitment to service. We are one of the few agencies that employ a staff of 20+ travel and event experts Full-Time and don’t rely on freelancers or part-time staff to plan our retreats. That means consistency in how we do things, the templates and processes we use, and who our clients work with year after year.

We then take it one step further by employing a ‘Pod’ model, where 1x Operations Lead (Manager) is teamed up with 2x Trip Planners to support them, in a three-person ‘pod’ that gets assigned to every trip we plan. They meet with each client on a bi-weekly basis and are the same people who go on-site to run the programs. This means a higher overhead for us (and as you can imagine, it does indeed make us more expensive!), but it also means an extremely high level of white-glove service and support for the really complex retreats where being able to rely on a team of ninjas to come in and help you plan an important retreat is necessary.

Our goal was never to be the lowest-priced agency or compete on price, but rather to be the best in terms of service and having the highest standards in the industry. Tons of repeat clients are very happy with our approach, and we hope you’ll agree!