A meeting can start just like any other working day – with a laptop, presentation and coffee. The difference comes after the last slide, when instead of heading home through rush-hour traffic, you can get on a bike, relax in the wellness area, go bowling, head into the mountains or sit down together for dinner. A corporate event away from the office gives people space to meet in a different way from the usual working week.
Sometimes you need a strategic meeting for ten people. At other times, it is a conference, workshop, team-building event or a multi-day stay for the whole team. And at the end of the year, perhaps a Christmas party that is more than another dinner in a restaurant a few streets away from the office.
At Amenity Resorts, the working part of the programme can be combined with accommodation, catering and activities in nature. Each location offers a different setting and a different way to spend time together.
Start with the goal. Plan the programme afterwards
Before choosing activities, it is worth asking why the team is meeting in the first place.
Do you need to present next year’s plan? Discuss strategy without the distractions of everyday office life? Bring a new team together? Thank employees for the season? Or simply create space where colleagues can spend time together without a calendar full of half-hour meetings?
Everything else follows from this.
A strategic meeting needs peace and a good working space. Team building can involve more movement and competition. A Christmas party can begin with a working session and end with music, a tasting or an evening in the wellness area.
Not every corporate event therefore needs the same format.
A change of setting changes the rhythm of the day
It can be difficult to completely step away from everyday operations while staying in the office. Someone is answering a phone call, someone is checking emails and another task is always waiting outside the door.
When the team moves to the mountains, the water or the forests for a day or two, a natural boundary appears between the normal working day and the shared programme.
The morning can be devoted to strategy. After lunch, the group can split up for cycling, a trip or another activity. In the evening, everyone meets again around the same table.
And those parts of the day that are no longer guided by a presentation can be just as important for spending time together as the meeting itself.
Team building does not have to mean a compulsory obstacle course
The idea that proper team building has to put everyone into the same competition is long outdated.
Some teams want sport. Others prefer a trip, wellness or a tasting. Paddleboards and bikes may work in one place, while bowling, a knowledge quiz or chess tournament suit another. In winter, cross-country skiing, downhill skiing or a snowshoe race can be added.
The programme can be competitive, relaxed or divided into several options.
What matters more than the number of activities is whether they suit the people taking part. A colleague who does not want to ski should not have to spend the whole afternoon in their room. While part of the team heads outside, others can use the wellness area, bowling or another indoor activity.
Lipno: water, sport and space for a larger programme
Amenity Hotel & Resort Lipno suits teams that want to combine the working part of the event with movement.
Conference facilities are complemented by a restaurant, catering, wellness and Amenity Sport Arena. During the warmer months, cycling and water activities such as paddleboarding or dragon boating can be added. Within a single day, the programme can move from a presentation to sport and then back to a shared table in the evening.
The main advantage is the range of options. If the weather changes, the entire programme does not automatically have to be cancelled.
Orlické Mountains: a working day that can end in the sauna
In Deštné, conference facilities meet a mountain setting and activities both in the resort and the surrounding area.
During the warmer months, the working programme can be complemented by hiking or cycling. In winter, the options change with the snow – from downhill and cross-country skiing to snowshoeing.
And if the team does not want to go outside?
There is wellness, a swimming pool, bowling, darts, table football and table tennis. A corporate event therefore does not need to depend on a single activity or perfect weather.
Špindlerův Mlýn: the mountains in summer and winter
The Krkonoše Mountains provide a naturally active setting for a working meeting.
Amenity Hotel & Resort Špindlerův Mlýn allows you to combine the working programme with walks, cycling, wellness and other activities. In winter, skiing and cross-country skiing can be added.
The advantage of a multi-day event is that everything does not have to fit into a few hours. The first day can focus on work, the second on a shared programme, with an evening in between that does not need a precise schedule.
Czech Canada: when the team mainly needs peace and focus
The forests and ponds around Nová Bystřice create a very different atmosphere from the better-known mountain resorts.
Amenity Hotel & Resort Czech Canada offers facilities for business meetings, wellness & balneo and two golf courses in the surrounding area. This creates space for conferences and workshops as well as smaller strategic meetings or networking.
Sometimes the aim is not to squeeze as much as possible into two days.
Quite the opposite. You need a place where the team can focus for several hours, switch off afterwards and continue the next day.
Pálava: smaller groups, wine and a long evening
A corporate event in South Moravia can have a much more intimate character.
Amenity Penzion Horní Věstonice offers a spacious garden overlooking Pálava, a terrace, wine cellar, catering and opportunities for tastings or cooperation with local winemakers. The setting is suitable for smaller corporate groups, strategic meetings and wine-focused team building.
Amenity Apartments Perná complement the offer with apartment accommodation and a self-service wine cellar.
In Pálava, the evening programme can be accompanied by the sound of cimbalom music and singing. A shared dinner, a tasting and time together without checking when the next item on the schedule starts may often be all that is needed.
A Christmas party does not have to end with a taxi home before midnight
The end of the year is a typical example of an event that can be approached differently from the usual city format.
Instead of spending a few hours in a restaurant, the team can head to the mountains for one or two nights. The day can include a short working session, skiing, cross-country skiing or snowshoeing, followed by wellness, dinner and an evening programme.
For some people, bowling will be the best part of the day. Others will prefer the sauna. Someone else may be looking forward mainly to a tasting or the moment when the conversation finally stops being about work.
Giving people a choice helps create a party that is not based on the assumption that everyone has to have fun in the same way.
Food is more than a break between two presentations
A coffee break, working lunch, barbecue or shared dinner sets the rhythm of the entire event.
And it is often here that discussions continue which did not have time to develop during the meeting – just without a projector and a fixed order of speakers.
Corporate catering is therefore not only about what is served. Timing and format matter too – a quick lunch during a working day needs something different from an evening the whole team is meant to spend together.
Do not forget the person organising the event
From the participant’s point of view, a corporate event may look simple.
They arrive. They get their room. They know where the meeting starts. Lunch appears on time. The afternoon programme follows the working session and dinner is waiting in the evening.
Behind that can be weeks of phone calls, bookings, changes in participant numbers and solving details.
That is why it makes sense to bring accommodation, catering, working spaces and activities together in one place and work with one partner for the organisation. Amenity event specialists prepare the programme together with the client according to the number of participants, date, type of group and selected location.
The organiser therefore does not need to find a hotel, conference room, restaurant and afternoon programme separately.
And perhaps this time, they may even get to enjoy the event themselves.
Not only for companies
The same principle works for other group events.
A birthday celebration, gathering of friends, wedding or weekend for a larger group brings a similar organisational challenge: you need accommodation for more people, food and a programme that does not depend on a single place or on the weather.
Some groups are looking for a large resort with plenty of activities. Others want privacy, a wine cellar or a quiet setting surrounded by nature.
That is why it makes sense to begin in the same way as with a corporate event – not with the question “where should we go?”, but “what do we want to do together when we get there?”
One event, six different settings
Lipno offers water, sport and extensive facilities. The Orlické Mountains combine conference spaces with resort activities and a mountain programme. Špindlerův Mlýn adds the Krkonoše Mountains in both summer and winter. Czech Canada brings peace, wellness and golf. Horní Věstonice and Perná offer Pálava, wine and a more intimate atmosphere.
There is no single ideal team-building format and no one correct way to organise a corporate party.
A good corporate event starts with knowing why you want to meet. The location, food and programme can then work for you.