Demand for Corporate Retreats Is Up

09.08.2024 - 16:34 / skift.com

Plex, a streaming company with a staff that’s fully remote, hosts a yearly retreat for more than 130 employees in locations from Mykonos to Tuscany to team-build and provide bonding opportunities. 

“They’re invaluable,” Plex co-founder Scott Olechowski said. “There is a productivity gain after this, because everyone is so psyched, and retention is another huge component of that. You know, hiring people is expensive, getting people trained up and getting them productive is expensive.” 

Travel groups that specialize in corporate retreats are reporting growing interest in their offerings. 

Hilton is seeing a “material increase” in off-site team gatherings as a direct result of the cutback on office spaces and move to at-home work, according to Frank Passanante, senior vice president at the hotel chain. 

Moniker, a corporate retreat planning agency, helps Plex plan its outings and has seen ups and downs since the pandemic. Revenue dropped to zero in 2020. In 2022, it had a major recovery before another dip in 2023 amid tech layoffs and a return to more conservative budgets. 

Now, Moniker forecasts sales growth of 25% in 2025. While demand is healthy, the tough part is explaining to new customers the value of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring staff to exotic locations like Tahiti. 

“Our bread and butter is the full company, full team retreat, and I tell them that the ROI is unfortunately intangible,” said Sean Hoff, a managing partner at Moniker. “You’re going to see tenure. People are going to stick around longer because they’re going to like working here. They’re going to like the people they work with. They’re gonna be more bought into the vision. They’re gonna care more about the organization, and you’re gonna see lower turnover.”

In a 2023 survey, Internova Travel Group found that 40% of business trips were for internal meetings – much more than it expected. “There’s a lot more internal events being held because people aren’t in the office,” said Henry Gilroy, senior vice president of strategic development at Internova.  

“It’s something that we’re really heavily investing in,” Gilroy said. “Incentive travel is really important to reward employees and get all your high performers together. So it’s definitely an area where we see a lot of growth on the corporate side.”

TravelPerk said it has seen growth in demand for offsites and retreats jump 40% this year, and 49% of businesses globally were looking to increase their travel budget in 2024 — of that, 33% were looking to invest more in employee social events like offsites and get-togethers, according to a 2024 survey of business travel decision-makers, business travelers and travel managers

Remote workforces require companies “to