Innovative ideas for team-building activities in Bangkok

Written by Team Expique
Published: September 19, 2018

If you are investing in a team-building activity in Bangkok, why not make it memorable by using it as an opportunity to explore the city and Thai culture?

Every sensible business owner and manager knows that investing in staff development pays dividends both immediately and in the longer term. Whether you run the smallest startup or a big global corporation, ensuring that every member of your team remains at the top of their game enables you to make sure that productivity is always peak and that your company is permanently performing at its best.

Any corporate plan for ongoing staff training and development needs to start with you understanding your requirements and what you ultimately want to achieve. Once established, team-building activities can be designed to help you achieve these goals and be sure you have a suitably gelled and smoothly operating workforce that both gets the job done and enjoys doing so, in the process sustaining motivation and reducing the potential for increased employee turnover.

But there are more ways than one to bring together your staff and ensure their workplace happiness and effectiveness. Don’t get stuck in the meeting room. Thinking outside the box – if you’ll excuse the over-worked corporate talk – allows you to deploy team-building exercises and activities that help you achieve your business goals and objectives while minimising the extent to which your staff even think about these tasks as work at all, but rather as a fun break from the grind. If you’re looking for innovative and effective team-building activities in Bangkok, we’ve got what you need – here’s our pick of the bunch.

Bangkok Discovery Challenges

Flower Market Tour at Pak Khlong Talat flower market in Bangkok, Thailand, by The Market Experience (operated by Expique) - photo by The Market Experience

Incorporate team challenges whilst exploring Bangkok and the local culture. Set your teams a challenge and pit them against both the clock and themselves! Nothing encourages people to think on their feet and deliver innovative solutions than applying a little pressure, and Expique’s amazing-race-style Bangkok Discovery Challenges do exactly that in a fun and exciting atmosphere.

It works like this: we split your people into teams (for best results, perhaps with people they don’t interact with as much on a day-to-day basis at work) and assign them a series of tasks and challenges that take them around Bangkok. Various puzzles, criptic clues and fun activities await your staff as they travel from point to point on their Bangkok Discovery Challenge, building relationships and developing key skills along the way while they seek to pip their coworkers to the post. Communication, teamwork and problem-solving are key if they are going to win!

Expique’s Bangkok Discovery Challenges are customised to your requirements, and specifically they will depend on where you are based and the time you have available. Typically we would recommend four to seven hours, but everything is totally customisable in order to help you achieve your desired business outcomes. Either way, you can be sure everyone will head back to the office a leaner, more engaged and more effective team – and with some hilarious tales to tell as an added bonus.

Team Cooking Challenges

Group cooking challenge at The Market Experience by Expique in Pak Khlong Talat flower market in Bangkok, Thailand - photo by The Market Experience

Cooking might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you consider results-driven corporate team-building activities – but perhaps it should be. There’s lots to be said for the skills developed in the kitchen preparing people for those required throughout life, both in and out of the office.

Everyone loves food and, whether you opt for a simple cooking class or workshop on seemingly intimidating Thai cooking techniques, or a bigger, more elaborate Prepare a Thai Feast Cooking Challenge, cooking challenges are a fabulous, outcome-based way of uniting a whole company around the joy of eating and all the cultural associations that come with it.

Bicycle Adventures

Taking your team out and about in Bangkok on two wheels can be an incredible way to get them out of their comfort zone and have them thinking in new ways in no time at all. The likes of legendary Bangkok bicycle tour company Co Van Kessel are experts at showing your people a different side to a city they thought they already knew, as the delve beneath the surface and explore unchartered territory from the saddle of a pushbike. Your staff will be literally and metaphorically helping themselves to develop personally and professionally, as they independently foster new transferrable skills while also pedalling their way around the Thai capital under their own steam.

Hit the road with the people who make your business work, as you embark on Co Van Kessel’s Amazing Bangkok Bicycle Rally, exploring the city by bicycle and longtail boat in search of examples of everyday local culture in the Thai capital. You will all come away with a new understanding of the place you call home, and equally of one another and your approach to life and to business. As an added bonus, you’ll all be that little bit fitter, too, from all that pedalling!

Evening Tuk Tuk Tours

Bangkok Night Lights evening tuk tuk tour in Bangkok, Thailand by Expique - photo by Expique

Just because your goal is team-building doesn’t mean there has to be a structured itinerary of ice-breaking activities and task-based challenges. Sometimes a change of scenery is all it takes to shake things up and keep people motivated. Especially after a full day of meetings, getting out of the office to see something new and different can quickly help achieve precisely that.

Tuk tuk tours are what Expique has been doing since 2014, and this signature product of ours is still what we do best. Every night we take visitors and Bangkok locals and expats alike out to see a side to the majestic Thai capital that they have never seen before, darting around the city on iconic tuk tuks with the wind in their hair as they set eyes on glittering temples, hidden alleyways full of secrets that mainstream tours never show you, and mountains of the kind of delicious street food for which Thailand is so renowned worldwide. But these incredible experiences aren’t the sole preserve of travellers – we can make our famous Bangkok tuk tuk tours deliver results for your company, too, in terms of bringing together your team and relaxing as a group.

That can be as simple as booking a private group tour that follows our usual Bangkok Night Lights evening tuk tuk tour itinerary, or alternatively we can offer full customisation to allow you to get exactly what you want from your team’s night on the town. Whether you want to add in extra sightseeing, food or drink stops, or additional challenges, we can adapt to your interests. You can even have us deck out our classic tuk tuks with your corporate logos and branding for an especially on-message feel, or throw in the occasional work-related challenge or task during the whistlestop tour of Bangkok. We can even help you use the occasion as an opportunity to treat your staff for a job well done, and add an indulgent, high-end feel to your team’s evening out, by combining a tuk tuk adventure with a luxury dinner cruise along the stunning Chaophraya river.

Your team will return to the office the next day with memories to last a lifetime, new friendships forged from spending time with colleagues in a different environment, and fresh ways of thinking that easily transfer to the workplace environment and translate into tangible business results.

Create your own scavenger hunt

If you want to add something fun to your team visit to Bangkok without incorporating a whole team-building event, you could simply set up your own scavenger hunt. Come up with a list of photos that staff have to capture during their stay, or items they have to buy. You could also get them to make team videos at certain points around Bangkok – the key is to make it fun but also challenging. You could include a theme for such items and, if you end up with great photos, it is great team-sourced material that you can even use to promote your company, publish on social media, or simply create a sense of camaraderie as teams share the material.

With mobile technology it has never been easier to set up your own scavenger hunt and collect items. You can use Facebook or Instagram for teams to share photos, or use tools like WhatsApp or Slack. There are also special apps you can use for scavenger hunts, such as GooseChase or Scavify. Everyone gets to follow the action and enjoy as people share their photos!

We often incorporate some of these scavenger-hunt elements into the team-building events we organise, and we are happy to share more ideas with you.