Unforgettable Experiences with Your Work Team
In our country, business and leisure combine perfectly. Incentive trips are rewarding experiences for workers and Colombia is full of ideal places to host them. How are these trips organized? Take a look at this behind-the-scenes.
When you decide to acknowledge your teams performance with an incentive trip, you are gaining unique, tailor-made experiences that you could not get otherwise. For example, your employees could visit a city like Cartagena on their own and experience this extraordinary place, but when they come on an incentive tripm the possibilities of this experience are endless: exceptional opportunities are offered such as enjoying dinners on pirate ships or competing in obstacle courses in the walled city. A unique city reveals new sides in this type of trip.
The organization of each trip involves large teams of people who guarantee perfection in each aspect: guides and companions, unconventional transportation such as goats and limousines, restaurants, hotels, musicians, dancers, artists, and others that will offer an unforgettable experience. A city like Cartagena not only has an ideal hotel infrastructure, exceptional spaces and a wide range of experiences to enjoy, but also experts in giving a creative turn to these experiences, and a team that shares quality in service as well as actual knowledge of the diverse treasures of this city holds.
The experiences in each city are designed exclusively for you and the needs of your company. In Colombia, the possibilities are endless. Here you will find a few options in the most special areas of the country.
Bogotá
The capital of Colombia is the best example that business and pleasure go well together. In Bogota, hotels, convention centers, and business complexes were designed from the beginning as a living organism to allow travelers to fulfill their commercial commitments while also having a good time in the streets that offer urban art, high-end restaurants delicious gastronomy, or street food, and nightly entertainment spaces with good music and the best drinks.
The city offers its visitors the opportunity to learn and develop fundamental skills for 21st century entrepreneurs: leadership, affective communication, and creativity. Direct contact with the people who walk these streets full of art and wit serve to awaken dormant skills within each traveler. Bogota has one of the largest business centers in the country that offers a busy schedule of big fairs, as well as a wide variety of museums and art galleries, and a significant number of top-level universities. The average temperature of the city is 14 °C.
THIS IS WHAT COLOMBIA TASTES LIKE
Where: different restaurants in Bogota
Duration of the experience: 3 hours
Bogota is home to people from all corners of the country. The gastronomy of the city is a cultural encounter of delicious flavors. Colombia’s most typical dishes can be found on the streets of the city. Try the recipes that season our days, visit marketplaces full of tropical fruits, eat in the best street restaurants, taste the food and drinks that are served on the tables of Colombians. An experience that will leave you licking your fingers.
URBAN ART TAKES THE STREETS
Where: streets of Bogota
Duration of the experience: 3 hours
The streets of Bogota shine their own light. The walls of many of the city’s avenues are living samples of the best urban art. On this tour you will see graffiti as tall as a building and drawings that will leave you astounded. It’s the perfect opportunity to ask everything you ever wanted to ask: how are they made? What materials do they use? What does it mean when a graffiti is just letters? How do they get permits? How can I become the next graffiti star?
Colombia offers cultural experiences influenced by music and dance, ideal for trips that go beyond conventional. Cali, Valle del Cauca.
A CATHEDRAL 180 METERS UNDERGROUND
Where: Zipaquira
Duration of the experience: 6 hours
Distance from Bogota: 49 km, an hour away from Bogota
The Zipaquira Salt Cathedral is a site built 183 meters underground in an amazing salt mine. Inside you will find invaluable traditional artistic richness in a tour designed to have the mining experience among soft and strong aromatic smells that awaken our senses. To finish the day, play some Tejo, the national sport of Colombia, which dates its roots back to pre-Columbian cultures.
Cartagena
It is the most important tourist city on the Colombian Caribbean coast. The climate makes Cartagena a dream place to work and rest in in equal proportions. Business meetings in Cartagena are surrounded by a special aura thanks to the slow rumble of the sea that reaches your ears like a story, and the warm, cool sun that glows on every surface it reaches. Who wouldn’t want an incentive like this? Waking up to the view of the Caribbean Sea from the window and resting in colonial homes.
The historical center of Cartagena is more than 500 years old and is surrounded by a colonial fortification that fills the cobblestone streets with magic. Vendors selling tropical fruits, typical sweets and cold drinks seem to be insensitive to the heat. This makes the city an ideal destination to promote creativity, listening skills, and openness to new experiences. It is no surprise that it is one of the main cities chosen for business trips in the country. Cartagena connects any business person or employer to the world first hand. The average temperature of the city is 28 °C.
ENJOY THE PIRATE EXPERIENCE
Where: streets of the city and San Felipe Castle
Duration of the experience: 4 hours
Have you ever imagined yourself sailing the seas with an eye patch and a parrot on your shoulder? Explore the bay of Cartagena on board an authentic pirate ship, wearing accessories such as hats and hooks, and being assisted by personnel in costumes. During the tour, find some treasures, enjoy a day full of food, cocktails, music and live shows as a real 19th century captain would. All hands hoay!
Getting to know a great city like Bogota is an excellent incentive for those who love entertainment and new experiences.
SIGHTSEEING TOURS IN THE WALLED CITY
Where: historic city center
Duration of the experience: 2 hours
Visiting the walled city of Cartagena is great. Visiting it with a team is even better. Share with your colleagues sightseeing tours to find the city’s hidden wonders. Learn about the history of this old town as a team, sharing laughter and jokes.
LUXURY CATAMARAN TRIP AT NIGHT
Where: Cartagena bay
Duration of the experience: 3 hours
Enjoy a pleasant night trip around the Cartagena bay on board a luxury catamaran. Start the night with an interactive welcome with palenqueras and traditional musical groups full of color and life. Then enjoy the breeze, the moon and the stars while sipping cocktails and eating fresh food prepared exclusively for you, accompanied by live music during the entire trip.
Medellín
The City of Flowers, the City of Eternal Spring, Medellin is every business traveler’s dreamed destination because it is the Colombian capital of creativity and innovation. In 2013, it was recognized as the most innovative city in the world and, as every entrepreneur knows, none of this is possible without a favorable environment for entertainment. The warm climate and the flowers in every street, squares and park awaken the senses of travelers and make this a most joyful visit.
Medellin is a city that offers fashion, technology, and music to those who decide to explore it. The environment is ideal for business and for encouraging creativity, transformation, and social responsibility in business people and workers. In short, Medellin is the country’s business center because it has come to understand better than anyone else that an incentive is an opportunity for learning mixed with fun. The average temperature of the city is 24 °C.
WELCOME TO THE COLOMBIAN CITY OF FASHION
Where: Streets of Medellin
Duration of the experience: 4 hours
Colombian fashion was born in Medellin. Learn first-hand about the world of design, modeling, photography and makeup by visiting the boutiques of some of the city’s best designers. You will see the work of artists who rescue the country’s artisan and indigenous tradition and participate in social processes to make fashion an experience shared by all.
CLIMBING THE ROCK OF GUATAPE
Where: Guatape
Duration of the experience: 8 hours
Distance from Medellin: 85 Km; 2 hours
Guatape is one of the most beautiful towns in Colombia. Only a couple of hours away from Medellin, it is the perfect opportunity to walk among cobblestone streets and houses painted in every color of the rainbow. In Guatape you can fin El Peñol, a 220 meter tall rock that you and your partners can climb on foot to promote teamwork, communication, do some exercise, and share some laughs.
PARTAKE OF SILLETA MAKING
Where: Medellin
Duration of the experience: 4 hours
Every year, the streets of Medellin fill with flowers of different colors. The Silleteros Parade is part of a long tradition in which countryside families grow flowers and organize them beautifully to carry them on their backs for a couple of hours across town. The show is amazing. You can learn about this tradition and make your own colorful silleta with more than 80 varieties of flowers from the region.
Nature mixes with architecture and provides incentive options for those who want to disconnect without leaving the city. Medellin, Orquideorama.
Coffee Trail
Much of Colombia’s best coffee is grown in the area composed by the departments of Caldas, Risaralda and Quindio. The coffee trail is a succession of mountains that build a landscape full of quiet and tranquility. This makes the region an attractive location for business and incentive trips, because, as every good businessman knows, the best business ideas come up with a cool head, a calm heart, and a good coffee on the table.
The coffee Trail is made up of spectacular landscapes that renew energies and fruit and coffee aromas that clear the mind. There is nothing more vigorous than enjoying the sunrise while smelling a good coffee and seeing the mountains in the horizon. This region, known for its crafts and gastronomy, is chosen by the best entrepreneurs to promote patience, decision making, commitment and a spirit of adventure. A destination far from the noise to encourage, recognize, and strengthen good performance at work. The average temperature of the region is 18 °C
A COFFEE, PLEASE
Where: Armenia, Manizales or Pereira
Duration of the experience: 3 hours
Coffee culture is as rich and powerful as the aroma of the beverage itself. Experience up close the process of growing, harvesting and processing one of the world’s finest coffee beans. Enjoy a hot cup, made from freshly ground beans. And feel like a real coffee farmer.
Many experiences are related to coffee, such as visiting coffee plantations and taking a tour on a Willys jeep. Coffee Cultural Landscape.
RIDE A HORSE LIKE A TRUE MULETEER
Where: areas surrounding Armenia, Manizales or Pereira
Duration of the experience: 6 hours
Muleteers are a traditional character of the region. They wear a poncho on their shoulder, a short brimmed hat and ride a horse, their true best friend. Be a muleteer for a day. Enjoy the peace of a good ride while marveling at amazing landscapes, attend horse shows and try delicious local cuisine. By the end all you’ll be missing is speaking with the local accent.
Plant the tallest trees in the world
Where: Valle del Cocora, Quindio
Duration of the experience: 2 hours
Planting a tree is the most generous of acts. It’s giving something without expecting anything in return.
The Wax Palm, Colombia’s national tree, is the tallest species in the world. Its maximum height exceeds 60 meters and it can live for more than 200 years. Live the experience of planting one of these majestic trees in the middle of a forest full of them, while enjoying a first class ecological walk.
How incentive trips work in 3 steps:
1. YChoose whether to reward individual or collective work—or both—in your company. In the first case, the trip is aimed at rewarding the outstanding performance of a single worker during the work period; and, in the second, at rewarding the communication and synergy of a whole work team with superior performance
2. Define the objectives to be met and the evaluation mechanisms at an individual and/or collective level; those who achieve them will be selected. Incentive trips are ideal for rewarding job performance and employee ownership of corporate values. It is a perfect tool to synchronize a company’s team. Additionally, you can plan more than one incentive trip and organize them as a third, second and first position, and thus recognize the work of several of your workers.
3. Finally, send selected workers on a trip of your choosing to destinations that foster creativity, leadership and a collaborative spirit. You should keep in mind that an incentive trip requires between 6 and 12 months of planning to make it special.
What are the benefits?
•Promotes company values.
•Develops loyalty, commitment and empathy between workers and the company.
•Reinforces communication and teamwork among employees.
•Improves workers’ comfort and motivation.
•Reduces stress at work.
•Facilitates the fulfillment of business goals.
•Improves company productivity.
•Consolidates a good image for the company.
