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PDFTips & Trends
Arizona Desert Adventures
DESERT FUN
Hard work deserves hard play. Human resources are a perennial target for growth, and the way you grow something is to take it outside! Reinforce employees’ teamwork and success with a thrilling desert ATV adventure or a beautiful sunset dinner cruise. Create lasting memories to be shared and re-shared around the water cooler or boardroom table. Any company event is proven to increase job satisfaction, cohesion, and performance. Make it an adventure outing and add more value to the event, as the regal Arizona desert expands the boundaries of cubicle and corner office alike.
The element of fun is often missing from most corporate events. However, adventure retreats can be used for a variety of company functions, not just as a reward system. Try using an outing to scout employees, or orient new ones. Holding a job fair on a lake tour boat creates a novel atmosphere for free-flowing ideas and a chance for people to really connect at a personal level. When you are seeking like-minded talent, it is important to get past the interview veneer and discover what people are passionate about. When you put your new or potential hires in a thrilling setting, exceptional qualifications may become apparent, making adventure outings an excellent way to test candidates and discovered hidden resources. Likewise, the thoughtful choice of scenic tour or raucous waterpark demonstrates a company’s values, vision, and corporate culture.
Adventurous events are a chance to build up a company’s branding, both interior and exterior. Employees get to truly experience how their company identifies itself, and prospective clients get to see how a company handles itself. Does your company choose experiences that build confidence, or challenges that use confidence? The difference between experiencing the desert on a wild ATV or on a stately tour boat is significant. A company’s image can be strongly communicated through choice of outing, and future customers can be effectively wooed through the judicious application of adrenaline and accomplishment. Luckily, the great Arizona outdoors offers many choices for adventure outings.
Tactical know-how can be easily translated to success in business. Many corporate event destinations bring elements of the extreme teamwork and can-do attitude of the Armed Forces to your lineup. Phoenixes American Paintball Coliseum provides tactical lessons for groups seeking to strengthen problem-solving, promote creativity, and create unity. Indoor fields house airsoft, paintball, and laser tag events, providing safety and air-conditioned comfort for all ages and skill levels. A fully stocked pro shop lets employees customize their experience, and take home a little something to practice with for next time.
Westworld Paintball Adventures, located in Scottsdale, focuses on strategic exercises to bring a new perspective to aggressive market positioning. Westworld uses low-powered pump action paintball guns to ensure inclusion of everyone, regardless of pain threshold. Their unique Capture-the-Loot game blends classic capture the flag rules with teamwork-oriented clock management, and nothing says company success like hauling bags of loot back to headquarters.
Indoor paintball generates epic tales, but the great outdoors can lead to much more. Arizona Outdoor Fun is an ATV desert tour company located north of Phoenix in the high Sonoran Desert. Tear across the desert with engines roaring under the guidance of this long-standing off-roading tour company. Enjoy gorgeous views of the Arizona landscape as your office journeys through dry creeks, wet rivers, abandoned gold mines, and spooky ghost towns. Two- and three-hour tours are offered, and if paintball proved that shooting together keeps you together, roll your ATVs up to Arizona Outdoor Fun’s private shooting range.
Desert Wolf Tours is another great company melding gasoline-charged excitement and gunpowder tactics. Located in Scottsdale, and winner of Trip Advisor’s number one off-road ATV adventure tour for seven years running, Desert Wolf Tours has the gear and the experience to make your team sweat and cheer. Take a three-hour desert tour, or gear up and become a Navy seal to simulate Operation Neptune, the mission to take Osama bin Laden. See if your team can work together to take down the world’s most hunted enemy.
Combat training makes for effective teamwork, but if the roar of engines is more appealing than the crack of guns, racing school may be a better choice for your company outing. Bob Bondurant’s racing school has hosted corporate group experiences for more than four decades, championing the message that a successful racing team consists of more than a single driver. The Accident Avoidance simulation tests reaction speed, and the importance of positioning and guidance is driven home with the Lead and Follow exercise. Let your team show off their teamwork in the Team Slalom or Grand Prix. Catering is provided by local partners, and the meeting room is in the Bob Bondurant Museum for added ambience.
For a smaller-scale dose of adrenaline, K-1 Speed is a nationwide go-to for racing fun. K-1 Speed is an indoor go-kart business building teams on the track at 40 mph. Activities are intended to boost comradery and group loyalty through team vs. team competitions, such as The Ball Challenge, The Blindfold Challenge (at safely controlled speeds), and a Pit Crew Challenge designed to get employees working together efficiently and effectively. Catering onsite.
If your company is looking for scenery without the noise of ATV engines or firepower, look no further than Pink Jeep Tours or Camp Civitan. Pink Jeep Tours has been providing memories of the Arizona and Las Vegas area, on road and off, since 1960. They have the largest tour vehicle fleet in the world, and Pink Jeep guides are trained for three months to learn the flora, fauna, geology, and history of the Sedona, Las Vegas, and Grand Canyon areas. Camp Civitan take serenity to a new level, leaving behind ATVs, guns, and jeeps. Located in the cool pine country of Williams, Arizona, this venue has everything a corporate retreat needs. Dining facilities, audio-visual equipment, campfires, overnight camping in dorms, private rooms, or campsites, two recreation halls, one outdoor movie theater, and a miniature golf course cover any possible need for camaraderie and relaxation. Multi-day retreats are custom catered on-site, and the camps close proximity to Flagstaff makes it a practical choice for a day-outing, as well.
If your people need some peace and quiet away from any type of engine, look no farther than Aerogelic Ballooning! Take a stately and serene tour of the Arizona or New Mexico landscape from a couple hundred feet up, drifting on a breeze punctuated only by the occasional blast of hot air. Multiple launch locations allow a viewing emphasis of desert landscape or city skyline, or book your retreat during a hot air balloon festival and be part of the color and pageantry! Book a champagne breakfast and sunrise viewing, or take a night flight and see what the full moon reveals. Hot air balloon rides are perfect for small groups, and Aerogelic Ballooning strives to keep passenger numbers down in order to ensure an intimate and bonding experience for coworkers, clients, or employees.
Miniature golf is a classic tradition in Arizona, and strong traditions make strong teams. Co-workers cheering as the boss finally gets their ball pass that windmill doesn’t hurt, either. Inviting children to a company event says a lot about your company’s values, and these destinations do just that. Castles n Coasters is a fun-filled theme park with exciting rides and challenging golf courses for all ages. Group reservations allow children four years old and younger to ride and golf for free with a paying adult. The park provides promotional materials and handles all elements of the event with professionalism and compassionate dedication. Whether your organization is a church, company, nonprofit, or youth group, Castles n Coasters has something for everyone.
Speaking of something for everyone, Golfland Sunsplash brings wet days and world-famous milkshakes to create common ground for teambuilding. Water recreation and miniature golf is the chocolate-and-peanut butter solution to the Arizona heat. Your employees will love you, and with space for up to 4000 people, that is a whole lot of love. Enjoy pizza and a drink at the arcade pavilion, or throw in a game of laser tag to hone those tactical skills learned at your company’s last adventure outing. Also, there’s no need to break the quarterly budget to host a day of water fun for your employees or clients. If you live near Tempe, the Kiwanis Recreation Center offers an amazing array of recreational activities, from indoor adult volleyball leagues to an enormous wave pool with 3-foot waves and eight varying patterns. Finding a destination where there’s something for everyone ensures that every employee is reached.
London Bridge Resort, located on Lake Havasu, is just such a destination, melding elegant Tudor architecture with lakeside watersports and three glittering pools. A 9-hole golf course and nightclub ensure accessible leisure time for everyone, or rent jet skis and boat slips to add a dash of nitro to the excursion. Family friendly beaches or sophisticated banquet halls present a spectrum of choices for any kind of meeting. Book a retreat in May to see the power boat race Desert Storm and network with some of the most prestigious boat enthusiasts in the world.
Wildlife World Zoo & Aquarium is another all-inclusive corporate retreat venue. Hosting the largest collection of exotic animals in Arizona, this zoo and aquarium is more than a menagerie. A host of rides brings the fish and animals to you in every way, from a round-trip treetop ski lift flight to a classic train tour to a boat ride past exotic marine life. Wildlife World Zoo & Aquarium also sports amusement park rides, if some of your team simply must have adrenaline included in any adventure retreat. Big groups save big, as well. Enjoy special discounts on admission, rides, and food.
Another delightful option for critters and cohesion training is Odysea Aquarium in Scottsdale, a multi-floorplan mega-venue with options for events with an undersea setting. In fact, in addition to dining or team-building beside enormous tanks of aquatic life, members can even do so inside those tanks! Swim with sting-rays and help preserve their delicate natural environment by hosting your event with all high-end compostable goods. If your event demands more than a string-quartet tank-side and cocktails for the office, the entire aquarium can be bought out to accommodate up to 2,800 guests.
If the team needs nothing more than absolute rest and relaxation, consider holding a dinner or event on a lake tour boat. Desert Belle and Dolly Steamboat are classy and serene options for rewarding a hard-working crew. Desert Belle runs tours on beautiful Saguaro Lake, where air-conditioned decks allow 125 passengers to sit down for a meal, a merry milieu, and music. Desert Belle’s staff provide decorations and accommodations for your event, as well as secure live music tailored to your office’s tastes.
Located in the spectacular Superstition Mountains, Canyon Lake is home to Dolly Steamboat and majestic desert animals like bighorn sheep, bald eagles, and the great desert titmouse. The twilight dinner cruise provides a serene, beautiful venue for your corporate dinner. Enjoy a desert sunset and a meal, or pair it with an educational experience on the Astronomy dinner cruise. Both cruising companies run two hour tours, although Desert Belle allows 30 minute increments to be added at purchase to make the experience last as long as is needed to achieve total relaxation and bonding.
Best Corporate Events is a high-speed, high-tech teambuilding experience delivered anywhere in the US. They bring their expertise and know-how to your office or any other venue. More than a destination, Best Corporate Events instead offers ideas and activities systematically designed and improved upon over years of planning and hosting events. Their activities focus on high-tech problem solving, innovation, and strategic planning. Try a popular iPad teambuilding activity, or sign your office up for a group volunteer offering. Best Corporate Events offers challenges resulting in the creation of items for donation to local and national charities, such as crafting bears and blankets, or putting together bikes for local youth. Choose from an extensive archive of activities, events, and challenges developed over years of training with the biggest company names in the world.
Whether you are building your brand, canvasing for talent, or reinforcing your hard-working employees, adventure events are a strategic solution. Corporate team-building and reward retreats show who you are and how you treat your people. There is no place like the great outdoors to broaden perspectives and create new insight, not to mention forge lasting bonds that will survive any weekly status meetings. Destination events merge daily living with exciting outings, to really bring coworkers together over more than just a cup of coffee and a progress report. Get out of the office for a day or three, and let productivity soar like a desert eagle.
