Have you tried team building on the beach in Italy?

Team building on the beach: fun is the key

Cala Goloritzè – Sardinia

From Sardinia to Salento, from Liguria to Tuscany, Italy offers plenty of space and facilities to host any team building activity that you might want to try. If you are looking for specific sports, like beach volley or canoeing, you won’t have to scout long for a hotel or resorts that offers them. You can also get creative and plan group activities that do not require anything more than your team, enough space and a few basic implements. The secret to a good team building on the beach is allowing yourselves to simply have fun and let your inner child take the wheel for a while. There’s a special kind of pleasure in playing sports and games that involve a lot of sweating and rolling in the sand, if you know that at the end of it you will be racing your team-mates to the sea, jump into the water and, later on, you’ll be sipping cocktails as you watch the sun go down on a spectacular landscape.

Beach Olympics

Beach Olympics

Beach sports are in a class of their own, which is why we are often asked by our clients to organise “Beach Olympics” for their team building sessions. These games can include anything from a classic beach-volley tournament (literally every beach in Italy has a beach-volley net somewhere), to more creative options, like “human table soccer”, which is played on an inflatable field. Canoeing and dragon-boat racing are also excellent team building activities, that test group dynamics and promote collaboration and harmony. Team sports in general are always an excellent idea and they have the advantage of not being perceived as awkward or contrived, which is what makes most team building efforts ineffective. The best activities are the ones you would want to try anyway, if you were on holiday with your friends.

Getting creative: sandcastle building

Did you think sandcastle building was just for children? Think again! Adults can have fun with it too, particularly if they think big. After all there are artists around the world that build amazing sculptures out of nothing but sand and water: your team can do it too! If you want to go overboard with thig particular team building, you could hire a professional sand artist to instruct your team on how to mix sand and water so that their creations will stay up for as long as possible, or you could just leave your employees to their own devices and set them a time limit and an “artistic” task. Either way, this is another activity that always culminates in a joyful race to the water, as everyone who undertakes it is going to end up thoroughly coated in sand.

Corporate survivor

If your location allows it you could plan a more complex survival game, that will keep your team engaged all day. This kind of activity is best suited to locations that are wilder and less populated, particularly if there are a few small isles available within swimming or rowing distance of the coast. Divide your team into two or more groups and have them play against each other, completing tasks and voting each other off, just like in popular reality tv shows. The tasks can be simple games like tug-of-war, or more complex activities, like treasure hunts, puzzles or proper “survivor” tasks, such as building a shack with whatever material they can find on the island or retrieving something from the bottom of the sea – this latter activity should only be undertaken in shallow water and only if all participants feel comfortable diving with masks and flippers.