When planning a conference, incentive, leadership retreat or team event, sometimes the right destination is closer than you think.
Orbit World Travel Groups Travel Specialist Evelyn Ng recently joined Destination Southern Highlands for a two-day famil, exploring the region specifically through a Groups & Events lens.
The visit provided an opportunity to look beyond the destination itself and consider the practical questions that matter when building a corporate programme. Which properties work for multi-day conferences? Where could you take a smaller leadership group? What can delegates do once they leave the meeting room? And how can food, nature and local experiences become part of the event rather than simply filling free time?
Across the two days, three very different possibilities stood out.
For organisations wanting to bring a larger team together outside the city, The Gibraltar Bowral offers the combination of accommodation, dedicated event facilities, breakout spaces and onsite dining needed to bring a multi-day conference or corporate event together.
One of the features that stood out to Evelyn was the natural light within the event spaces, including the ballroom, along with views across the surrounding landscape and golf course. It might sound like a small detail, but when delegates are spending a full day moving between presentations, workshops and breakout sessions, the environment can make a significant difference.
With 78 rooms and suites and multiple meeting and event spaces, The Gibraltar Bowral can accommodate everything from smaller strategy sessions through to larger conferences and corporate events. For some groups, there is also the potential to take over the hotel, creating a more private environment where accommodation, meetings, meals and networking all happen in one place.
It offers everything needed for a multi-day conference in one location, with the added space and surroundings of the Southern Highlands.
Not every corporate gathering needs a ballroom.
For executive teams, leadership groups and smaller incentives, Ardour Milton Park offers a very different proposition.
Set within the historic Milton Park estate near Bowral, the property combines heritage architecture and established gardens with recently refurbished interiors. Rather than feeling like a conventional conference hotel, the property lends itself to programmes where privacy, conversation and time together are as important as the formal agenda.
A leadership team could spend the day in strategy sessions before moving into dinner and more informal conversation onsite, without the constant transfers and interruptions that can come with a city-based programme.
For smaller groups in particular, this type of environment can help create a genuine sense of being away from the day-to-day, while still providing the level of accommodation and hospitality expected for an executive retreat or incentive.
Then there are events where the objective is to get people out of the traditional meeting environment altogether.
Scribbly Farm was one of the more distinctive stops on the famil and demonstrates how differently a Southern Highlands programme can be structured.
The working farm offers a purpose-built event barn alongside paddocks and outdoor spaces, creating opportunities to combine workshops or business sessions with shared experiences in the same location.
One of the highlights for Evelyn was a paddock dining experience with chef Stefano Marvello. Rather than dinner simply being the final item on an itinerary, experiences like this can become a central part of the programme, bringing a group together over local produce and a shared dining experience in the landscape.
There is also scope to build other activities around a corporate programme, from cooking and food experiences to wine, gin and outdoor activities.
For smaller groups or VIPs, Scribbly Farm also has premium geo-domes onsite, including solar-powered accommodation that Evelyn inspected during the famil.
It could work particularly well for incentive groups, team offsites or organisations looking for something less conventional than a hotel-based programme.
The broader famil also showed just how much can be added around these anchor venues.
Wine tasting, high tea, local food experiences and a visit to Fitzroy Falls offered different ways to break up formal sessions, while Bendooley Estate provides another opportunity to incorporate the region’s food, wine and country setting into an itinerary.
Team-building was another focus, with Evelyn exploring creative activity options with Fox in a Box and visiting Bowral Honey Farm. Importantly, many of the local suppliers she met were able to adapt or develop experiences specifically for groups rather than offering a fixed tourism product.
The visit to Mussett Holdings Regenerative Farm added another dimension.
Here, Evelyn learnt more about regenerative and biodynamic farming and the role sustainability plays within the region’s agricultural industry. For organisations with sustainability objectives, experiences like this can provide an opportunity to incorporate those themes into a programme in a practical and engaging way, connecting delegates with local producers and the destination rather than simply discussing sustainability in a meeting room.
What stood out from the famil wasn’t one particular hotel or activity. It was the flexibility of the destination.
A larger team could base itself at The Gibraltar Bowral for a multi-day conference. A leadership group could retreat to Ardour Milton Park for a few days of strategy and connection. An incentive or team programme could centre around Scribbly Farm, food, wine and outdoor experiences.
And each could be built very differently depending on what the organisation wants its people to take away from the experience.
That’s also why firsthand destination knowledge matters.
Our Groups & Events team regularly works with venues, suppliers and destination partners to understand not only what’s available, but what will actually work for a particular group, programme and objective.
Because a successful event isn’t simply about finding somewhere with enough rooms and a meeting space. It’s about bringing the right destination, venue and experiences together to create a programme that works as a whole.
Talk to Orbit World Travel Groups & Events about how we can bring your next programme together.
1800 067 819 | gr****@*********el.au
