Wooing your workers

The Pahia Beach Resort and Spa is an ideal place to pamper and motivate your hard-working office achievers.

A number of upmarket North Island resorts now market themselves for corporate Christmas parties, and report companies are splashing out more on treating their best and brightest. The season starts in November and numbers vary from a select few to the whole company.

Paihia Beach Resort & Spa owner Ray Arnesen, is passionate about the need for employees to recharge their batteries, even initiating a resort Corporate Wellness Programme.

"Corporates are now responsible for staff well-being and stress management," he says.

Rather than sending staff back to work hungover and exhausted, they should be treated to a night or two of pampering. "Two or three days rest gets them fired up and wanting to return to work. Spending $1000 with us you get more productive staff, a better attitude and more respect."

The five-star resort's primo corporate Christmas party would start by a visit to the pool, followed by a day touring the Bay on the Mission Hills boat, lunch at the Cavalli Islands, then maybe a spa, some cave exploration or kayaking.

Behind The Scenes director Dani Greenfield often organises Christmas parties for clients. She recommends Northland's Carrington Resort on the Karikari Peninsula, complete with winery, golf course and five-star accommodation, for Auckland-based companies wanting to get away.

For those who don't mind travelling south or are Wellington-based, she suggests Boomrock, in the Ohariu Valley near Wellington. "Generally companies want to create a wow factor - something memorable and different".

Add-ons to basic packages can include helicopter transfers, live entertainment, or unique transport modes like army trucks or private trains.

"We can even organise Santa!"

Auckland-based revellers can get out of town with a 40-minute drive to the West Auckland rainforest setting of luxuriously updated Waitakere Estate. Estate managing director Reg Nevill-Jackson offers abseiling, laser shooting, archery, squash and petanque.

After all that playing, he says, many guests stay overnight, enjoying drinks on the balcony or in the garden followed by dinner in the restaurant with spectacular sunset and city lights views.

The next morning, after a leisurely late breakfast, keen guests can enjoy the native forest and birdlife along the Kauri Track, an old 1800s milling tramway. Then it's back to the Big Smoke.

- Detours, HoS