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VOL. 12.5

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By Simon Hand
 

A local Destination Management Company ensures
that any corporate event runs smoothly.
 

On a recent sunny morning on Phuket, a ragged local baht-bus bounced along the narrow roads behind the Loch Palm Golf Club. Jostling around on the hard bench seats in the rear, 10 Danish visitors struggled to comprehend the almost nonsensical directions they had been given – twisting maps left and right, looking for landmarks. The driver was no help at all, refusing to answer any questions about where they were. All they wanted to do was get from the Novotel Patong to the Boat Lagoon as quickly as possible. All they wanted was the promised unspoiled beach. And here they were on some back road surrounded by forbidding forest and daunting mountains. Lost.

Just another tourist nightmare? Yet another tale of woe with which to forewarn friends who plan to visit the island? Not at all. In fact, the 10 Danes hadn’t enjoyed themselves so much in ages. Their only major concern was whether they would beat the other three baht-buses, each carrying an equal number of confused compatriots, all of whom were desperately trying to figure out the route riddles with which they had been supplied by their local DMC.

DMC. It may sound like a rap band or a memory of wars passed, but this term is becoming one of the most important any corporate travel planner will use – whether they are organizing international conferences, regional sales incentives, or just the company picnic. With years of experience in creating one-of-a-kind events and connections with specialist local suppliers, a local DMC – or destination management company – ensures that a corporate event runs smoothly. In this particular case, however, the DMC involved with the intrepid Danes relishes nothing better than making their clients’ visit as difficult as possible.

Bill Owen and Linda Towell of The Travel Company, Phuket’s oldest and most experienced DMC, have a reputation for putting together some spectacularly inventive incentive programs. So, when Danish IT consultancy, Sigma Contra Ventum, said they wanted something a little special to occupy their staff’s attention while on the island, the pair moved into fiendish mode.

Contra Ventum’s previous incentive trip had begun with the company’s 40 consultants being dumped at Heathrow Airport, given a small amount of money and a distant map reference, and told they had less than 12 hours to get there. This was followed by an intensive workshop weekend designed by one of the UK’s top team-building and leadership training groups. Bill and Linda knew they had their work cut out for them.

Working in their favour, however, was the fact that the Danish company wanted to make sure this trip not only fulfilled the requirements of team building and skills development, but also remained fun – and fun is something that is never in short supply on Phuket. Not that this would make it any easier for the DMC, in fact – as Bill explained during a site inspection at T-minus one week – it had taken nearly four months of almost daily e-mail communication to guarantee that the incentive program fulfilled the company objectives and remained totally unique. “While Phuket’s conference business has been growing and growing over the last five, six, or seven years, incentive programmes seem to be going in cycles. At the moment there’s less demand for top-quality incentive packages.”

He believes the reason for this is that current island packages offer very little that’s new or exciting – today’s jaded business execs tend to have been there and done that. “That’s why each of our programmes is tailor-made for the client. We cut and paste them together to fit client needs and budgets, making each one a unique experience.”

Of course, as the region’s tourism industry grows, it becomes more and more difficult for Bill and his team to come up with unique experiences, but that just seems to add to the fun of it all for them. An unfortunate casualty of the need to be unique has been Phi Phi Island. “We don’t send clients to Phi Phi any more – it’s been trashed,” says Bill, sadly shaking his head at the almost untrammelled tourism development on the once tranquil isle.

And so, other sites must be found. The site inspection has already taken The Travel Company team to Rang Yai and Naga islands, where team-building activities, a pearl farming lecture and lunch would fill a few hours of the Danish consultants’ second day in Thailand. Bill and Linda had walked their team through the different activities, talked to the islanders about the arrangements, and now they were to make their final stop, fulfilling one of the few specific Contra Ventum requests – a Bounty Bar Dream Island. Here the Danes would spend an afternoon recovering from the rigours of the morning and a night under canvas, before setting out for a day with Sea Cave Canoe.

All this may sound fairly straightforward – and for Bill and Linda, with 11 years of experience dealing with groups of up to 200 incentivists, it’s not a great stretch. Yet, when you start to go over the logistics, when you get at the nitty-gritty, the task begins to look just a bit daunting. Where do you get tents for 40 people, and who’s going to put them up, and clear the site? And what about getting permission from the marine park, and, and, and … ? Even then, there’s more to plan, because it’s not just about getting it right, it’s also about making allowances for when things go wrong. What if the buses don’t show up? (They did.) What if the boats break down? (One did, but the problem was dealt with.) What if a storm blows in that threatens to flatten all the tents and strand all 40 Danish consultants on a faraway beach with only their swimsuits to keep them warm. Well, I’m sorry, but, you know there’s not a lot we can do about that, is there? Not our fault.

Oh yes, it is.

Guess what happened? Having successfully negotiated Bill and Linda’s remarkably twisty-turny Treasure Hunt route to the Boat Lagoon, the jovial IT teams from Copenhagen had their map reading skills tested as they tried to navigate four speedboats towards Rang Yai Island with nothing more than a compass heading. The sky was blue, the sun was warm, but out in the Indian Ocean trouble was already brewing. A quick game of Blindman on the Beach, and the teams were navigating their way to Naga Island where lunch and more games awaited them. By this time, the Indian Ocean storm front had pushed some fairly nasty squalls up towards Phang Nga Bay. Disaster loomed with every passing minute, but above Rang Yai, the skies remained blue, the sun still shone.

There was no urgency in Bill’s voice as he called the teams to lunch, even though he had cut short an extensive discourse on the wonders of pearl farming. Alas, he explained while the Danes ate, there’s a bit of rain heading this way and we want to move the other activities to the final destination – you know, just to be on the safe side. Anyway, there’s more room there. Still the realized was that Bill had been getting regular weather reports all morning, had made sufficient provision for just such an eventuality. His timing was perfect. Well, almost. As the four boats sped off across the bay to their final destination, the storm front roared down upon Naga Island – a mass of thick grey rain that cast a pall over blue sky, bright sun and every island for miles around. The sea churned a deathly grey beneath it, and 40 Danish IT consultants got a bit damp as their craft bobbed and skirted the very edge of the tempest. While the storm lashed around it, the natural topography of the Bounty Bar Dream Island kept the beach miraculously dry – something for which even Bill could not take credit.

That evening, two-score happy IT consultants – their stomachs full from a huge feast – sang Danish drinking songs late into the star-spangled night as they tried and failed to drink the coolers dry. Such incentives as this may seem to be quite an extravagance, yet for a company like Contra Ventum – one that prides itself on its easy-going attitude – this had been an ideal opportunity to bring together people who rarely meet, work or even talk to their counterparts. Several admitted that they had made better networking use of their two days of fun-packed incentive than they had in a year of weekly three-hour meetings, while others got to make friends with people who before had only been a voice on the phone.

In conclusion: it was another smoothly efficient and – most importantly – effective incentive trip. Yet, when you think of all that could have gone wrong, and not just the weather … When you reckon the logistics of moving 40 people, not just from A to B, but to C, D, E, F and G on however many forms of transport … When you see how all the unforgiving minutes must be filled with 60 seconds worth of distance run, then you realize that, whatever the aims of the company booking the package, the aims of the DMC must be that much higher.

Dinner With a Difference

A sunset dinner on the beach – as wonderful as it is the first time – can feel a little tame after a few evenings. But the Dusit Laguna has found a number of ways to spice up the twilight for your group. Beach Night offers grilled fresh seafood served by Polynesian natives on a secluded beach. Gatsby Night takes you back to the Roaring Twenties in the gardens of a beautiful Sino-Portugese mansion. The Thai Village and Temple Fair parties offer different aspects of local culture, while the Rainforest Party needs little explanation.

Go Climb a Tree

Running courses from a few hours to a few days, Quest is a high-wire workout for your group’s leadership, teamwork and climbing skills. The Laguna Phuket-based Quest offers tailor-made programmes based around its multi-purpose jungle gym that faces out onto Bang Tao Beach. If the 15m-high, inverse gradient, climbing and abseiling wall doesn’t get the adrenaline pumping, leaping from a pole onto a trapeze 10m above the ground should make the most lion-hearted of bosses look to their staff for the encouragement needed to do the deed.

Crawling Your Way to The Top

If you reckon the 15m Quest climbing wall is for sissies, but lack the experience to tackle the sheer limestone cliffs of Phang Nga, then give Cheer Kongkhao a call at Cliffsman Climbing Training Centre. Phang Nga has become the hot new zone in the regional climbing circuit, and Cliffsman, based in Krabi, was established recently to give aspiring ascenders the very best in information and training before they attempt the craggy escarpments. Cliffsman, (01) 970 8569,
397 5559, 228 4115, 229 4380;
e-mail: rockzone1968@hotmail.com;
website: www.Thaiclimb.com.

Food For Thought

Experiencing Thai food from the end of a fork is only half the fun – learning to cook it yourself, with the guidance of some of the country’s top chefs, can make dinner a cultural experience par excellence. Several hotels run Thai cooking classes, but one of the best is at Mom Tri's Boathouse in Kata. If you’re eager to learn the secrets of the oyster sauce, or just become a dab hand at Phad Thai, The Boathouse course will leave you with more than just a taste of Thailand. You will also receive a certificate proving you’ve mastered Thai culinary techniques.

A Night On The Town

Organizing spectacular – and somewhat bizarre – theme parties is what really gets The Travel Company excited. Recently they have put together a couple of the most memorable parties the island has experienced. First came a pseudo jailbreak, featuring conference delegates dressed up in prisoner uniforms and being chased around the island on a treasure hunt before finally getting “locked up” in a very stylish prison offering a lavish buffet and fully-stocked bar. This was then outdone by booking out an entire side street of beer bars, off Patong’s busy Soi Bangla, for yet another huge group of conference visitors. Though Bill Owen is keeping mum about the next big corporate extravaganza, there’s no doubt it will be a party their clients will recall for years to come.