Team Building Activities as a Contribution to Tourism Development: A Case Study in the North of Portugal

Abstract

Tourism assumes a position as a source of income and development, carryings the need to segment its offer according to the motivations of the demand, giving rise to various niches that adapt their products to the market’s needs. This study aims to verify whether there is a possibility of generating a niche market, “Team Building Tourism”, by creating an integrated offer with the added value of this product. This investigation combines a mixed methodology, analysing three distinct universes: small and medium-sized companies (SMEs), large companies and tourism agents. The empirical study considers three research analyses: (1) to understand the level of knowledge about the theme and the logistics of team building activities for companies and to obtain the best results; (2) to understand the motivation of the employees who carry out team building activities, and of the companies, classifying their degree of satisfaction towards these activities; (3) to explore the position of tourism towards these team building activities. As a result, this study verified that besides the universe of the big companies being more oriented towards the importance of the investment in these activities, the SMEs admit a compensatory character. Furthermore, it was understood that team building could be sold as a tourism product directed to companies. Therefore, the agents adopt these activities as a sales strategy and contribute to combating seasonality, becoming an added value and assuming enough weight to be a new niche in the tourism market segmentation.