We have condensed the power of the corporate ski trip into 5 key points, combined they produce events which continually deliver on multiple corporate objectives.
1 – Escape to the unfamiliar
Elevated thoughts are not something with on / off switch. We are humans and we require stimulation to problem solve, to strategize, to unify around an objective. Internal meeting rooms are a break from a desk, but in reality, hardly a change of scene. Dining to reward or incentivise can cost more in central London than beneath the Mont Blanc. The menu can be as good (if not better) yet the familiarity of the surroundings restricts the experience. The x-factor is the unfamiliar – meeting or incentive programmes only truly unleash potential when they are unfamiliar, where routines are broken, and the dinner isn’t followed by a commute, or the meeting room vacated for the desk. Escape is an all-powerful thing.
2 - Cathartic vastness
The world is full of awe, both natural and humanmade. We are bombarded with imagery from dawn to dusk, depicting everything from great feats or stunning vistas. A screen can never convey the sublime, the emotion of staring out at the vast granite formations that are so dissimilar to most people’s daily lives. Fix your gaze on the Mont Blanc Massif for any length of time and it becomes dizzying, the scale translates as sheer beauty, and the sensation is utterly overwhelming. You would be hard pushed to resist the emotion and those with you are most likely to also have succumbed. It doesn’t need to be verbalised, in most cases it couldn’t be in any case, it is a shared moment between friends and colleagues, a visual zenith that ties you all to the moment. Around each corner, the Alps serve up a veritable feast of eye candy – from the rolling charm of Bregenzerwald to the confounding structures of the Dolomites and the scale of the Mont Blanc ice sheets.
3 -Shared travails
Unlike many other corporate event programmes, corporate ski trips feature shared pursuits at their core. A snowboarder understands the drive of a skier and an experienced skier knows the thrills and challenges of those stepping into ski boots for the first time. Experience varies but a shared appreciation develops instantly. Lunch, dinner or fireside bar, group cohesion is cemented by the common pursuits. No need for fine details, the hymn sheets are the same and the unity of purpose, challenge or celebration are universally shared.
4 – Quality from the top table
The built infrastructure of these alpine destinations is without equal. The hotels that have defied the physical challenges for centuries, the engineering of the mountain transport systems, or the architecture that allows us to harmonise with the wilds of the high alpine, safe and warm – all these features instil confidence and awe. It is a built environment to give inspiration, where challenges can be solved, and design successes are glaringly apparent. Add to this a gifted chef, a meticulous concierge or a proud horn player and the end-product is as opulent as can be found anywhere.
5 - Snow is a wormhole to childhood
Unwittingly or not, we all get engrossed in the prospect of a white Christmas. A dusting on our gardens and the social postings start. We urge the skies to blanket the ground so our kids can experience the unique excitement. A blanket of snow in reality softens built and physical features, it makes our localities more mundane. Yet it triggers something in us that we never tire of, a wormhole to our childhood where we longed for exposure to and immersion in this bewildering substance. Lifetime memories can be forged riding though deep powder, but even then, those people are still as susceptible as the rest to a stroll through a resort as snow swirls from the sky.
Whatever the individual reasons for signing off a corporate ski trip, very successful people come back to us, year after year, fixated on revisiting the sensations that are only found in the high alpine. There is something there.
