Team building tourism has become more favored in Vietnam, since businesses want to bolster their staff’s confidence, encourage old officers and help new comers integrated quickly into the new environment.

The clients who book team building tours not only want to unite their teams through trips, but also want to check the competence of personnel, and drive the teams to the public interests. However, not many Vietnam travel companies follow this kind of tourism – team building, because the requirements on the content and the way of organizing team building tours have become higher.

Vu Nhu Trang, Personnel Director of Kim Tin Company, said that in the last three years, the company does not organize normal tours, but chooses a new type of tourism – team building. She said that there is always a new message for every trip. In 2011, for example, a team building tour was organized with the message “Living with the sense of responsibility.”

In 2011, Kim Tin ordered a travel firm to organize an outdoors discovery program for its staff from Ho Chi Minh City to Safari Dambri and then to Da Lat. During the trip, different situations were created which forced every person to try to overcome difficulties and show their responsibility to the success of his team.

The travelers were asked to regroup as quickly as possible, look for meals themselves and spend with the fixed sums of money delivered to them by the organization board. All these were the big challenges which the staff had to overcome and were not allowed to give up the games and they must reach their destination.

“We sometimes did not know whether to laugh and cry. We also argued. However, after that, we joined forces to overcome difficulties and lead an elephant to the hill,” Trang said.

“After experiencing the challenges, we have become more appreciated the comradeship and better understood each other,” she said, adding that Kim Tin would still choose a team building tour this year.

Bui Tien Dat, Personnel Director of Caravelle Hotel, said he was very satisfactory with the team building “change to lead” tour to Nha Trang, designed for key persons. The message “Change to lead” was chosen because in 2012, Caravelle will be upgraded into one of the leading hotels in HCM City. Therefore, the hotel wants its leadership to be changed and upgraded to get adapted to the new ranking.

Dat said that every team of travelers was delivered 50 lottery tickets. Only if they could sell the tickets, could they get money to buy food. After that, they had to come to see local residents to borrow necessary tools to prepare the meals. The challenge really helped upgrade the sales skill in the difficult period. One day, the travelers were left on an isolated island, and they had to move to seek food. Eighteen people experienced the hardship, including eight foreigners.

Another game that travelers joined was that they had to survey five star hotels in Nha Trang to learn about the prices, the way of doing business, the service quality of the hotels. The surveys were all given marks. Dat said that the activities helped people well understand themselves and realize that the solidarity could help settle many difficult problems.

Truong Hoang Phuong, Marketing Director of Vietmark, has noted that the more difficult is the economic situation, the higher is the demand for team building tourism, because companies try to bolster their staff’s confidence and encourage them to devote to the companies.

However, he also said that all businesses try to cut budget in the economic difficulties. Therefore, organizers need to renovate their products regularly and find out the reasonable destinations which both allow saving money and implementing the messages the clients want.

In the past, team building simply meant organizing the tours with outdoors games or the indoors meetings. However, the requirements by clients have become higher. They want the games that can serve as a “soft skill training course” and polish their image in the eyes of the community.