A captive audience

Once a year, Wayne Clark flies 60 executives from around the country to Las Vegas, then takes them to Lake Mead, where he plops them aboard houseboats, with jet skis available by day and salmon and steak on the menu by night.

Employees may think such remote and fun-filled business meetings are a great perk, but their boss probably has an ulterior motive.

“We take them so far out on the lake it’s difficult to get a Blackberry signal,” said Clark, vice president of corporate administration for Georgia-based Med Assets, which does purchasing for the hospital industry. “Isolation allows us to concentrate on team-building exercises and strategic planning.”

Meeting planners are becoming increasingly creative in looking for venues that get attendees away from phone calls, faxes and other office interruptions. Those venues might include houseboats, cruises, even trains.

“The No. 1 benefit of cruises is that you have a captive audience,” said Debbie Donze, president of Cleveland-based Cruise-Meetings.

Days at sea are good for meetings, she said, and evenings are good for bonding. “In a hotel, they can go in many directions in the evening,” she said. “They’re more likely to stay together on a cruise.”

Donze was a regular meeting planner for a decade before she realized the many advantages of cruise meetings.

Seven years ago, she formed Cruise-Meetings and began specializing in meetings on oceangoing vessels. She orchestrates about 50 onboard business meetings a year for groups of as many as 550.

It might seem businesses are being generous by planning onboard meetings, but Donze says the cost is actually less than a land meeting because most everything is included on a cruise.

“Corporations like it because they know upfront exactly what their cost will be,” said Donze, who estimates that meeting on a cruise ship costs 30% less than on land, once you factor in catering and meeting-room expenses.

She pointed out that ships also provide entertainment and don’t charge extra for audio-visual equipment.

And ship theaters have sound systems, which make them a great place for sales presentations or awards programs, she added.

In recent years, cruise lines have begun to recognize this market and are building ships with dedicated meeting space, Donze said.

With a year of planning, businesses can even charter an entire cruise ship, an 1800s-style stern-wheeler or a train. The exclusive use allows them to use all spaces as well as customize shore or land excursions.

For a uniquely American experience, businesses can charter authentic showboat reproductions. The Queen of the West, which has 72 staterooms and departs from Portland, Ore., cruises the Columbia, Willamette and Snake rivers. The Empress of the North, which has 112 staterooms and suites, cruises between Seattle and Juneau, Alaska.

Both ships have four decks, an onboard historian, entertainment, fine dining and mostly outside cabins. All shore excursions are included in the price.

Businesses like the ships because the experience is “different and upscale so it reflects well on the company,” said Doug Pendleton, vice president of sales for American West Steamboat Co., which owns both ships.

“With a small ship, we can get closer to wildlife and go places the big ships can’t, like out-of-the-way fishing villages,” he said. “If we see a humpback whale, our boat stops.”

The ships have five pricing levels, depending on the season, Pendleton said. He estimated the per diem at $350 to $400.

Another option for medium-size groups is a luxury train from American Orient Express, which only recently started marketing to businesses, said Ken Kramer, director of sales.

The AOE’s most popular program is Parks of the West, from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City, with stops in five national parks, Kramer said. Because of its popularity, AOE will add excursions on that route next year.

Basic pricing on suites runs about $4,000 per person for a seven-day program, including all excursions, meals and afternoon tea, Kramer said.

Mark Gentry, regional director of business development for Illinois-based Lawson Products Inc., offered the trip as an incentive for his top salespeople and their spouses after seeing a PBS program about the train.

“Everybody loved it,” he said. “They treat everybody first-class.”

While small meetings could be accommodated with other passengers onboard the AOE or paddle-wheelers, the sales directors acknowledged it would be a challenge. And even on large cruise ships, it takes creativity to find space not being used by passengers, Donze said.

Clark, a 25-year veteran of meeting planning, said his favorite venue in recent years has been the houseboats on Lake Mead. He has been able to simplify the task of conducting a meeting for 60 employees by using seven houseboats.

Small groups meet on individual houseboats during the day, and the entire group congregates at night on one of the larger vessels or under a tent on the beach.

Dinner is served on each houseboat, with employees assigned to a different one each night to ensure they’re getting to know different people.

“Dinners are orchestrated and very purposeful,” Clark said.

Top executives are in charge of planning and preparing the evening meals and turn in their menus -- which include steaks, salmon and other fare -- in advance so Clark can arrange to have everything onboard when they depart.

Because Clark also arranges for jet skis, motorboats and other water equipment, no one has complained about the isolation on the far reaches of Lake Mead. Though some employees are initially hesitant, they’re often the ones who bring musical instruments or houseboat decorations the next year, he said.

For this summer’s outing, he did a comparative cost analysis with a nearby resort and found prices comparable with his houseboat excursion. It would be easier to go to a hotel, he said, but the camaraderie wouldn’t be the same.

Some groups prefer to dock and use the houseboat as a floating hotel rather than be in constant motion, said Kim Roundtree, boat rentals manager at Callville Bay Marina on Lake Mead.

In fact, one winter a business rented several houseboats and never left the dock, setting them up as meeting rooms.

Prices range from $995 per boat for two nights up to $5,495 for seven nights on a larger houseboat, Roundtree said.

A company in Sausalito offers what may be the ultimate team-building event on the water: sailing.

Modern Sailing Academy specializes in employee team-building exercises, which culminate in a corporate regatta on San Francisco Bay.

The academy provides a licensed captain for each boat, but there are no bosses. Employees divide themselves into teams they think will be cohesive. There is a maximum of six on each boat.

San Francisco Bay is one of the most challenging places to sail, and sailing requires teamwork, said Jack Majszak, general manager.

“The beautiful part of sailing is that every person, whether it looks like it or not, has a specific function,” he said. “If someone is lacking or falling behind, someone else may have to jump in and help out.

“They realize that may not be their job, but if they help, they all win.”