With increasing numbers of business travellers looking to save time, money, and effort when they travel, the idea of a convenient mid-point meeting destination is gaining in popularity, especially for one-off or annual events like AGMs, conferences, seminars and team-building workshops. For many mid-sized organisations, technology has led to more dispersed satellite offices and individual employees working remotely, while global corporations still tend to maintain headquarters in all the major regions of the world.

Face to face

But encouraging staff members to meet face to face is still vitally important to the health and wealth of a company, even if those meetings are infrequent. Studies have shown the vast majority of employees feel that meeting other colleagues in person has a more positive effect on trust, transparency, idea generation and decision making than relying on conference calls, emails and instant messaging. And after the meeting is over there’s more of a personal connection between staff, often leading to a more collaborative approach.

Bringing everyone together in the ‘mother’ destination is not always the answer though, especially if that destination happens to be somewhere as eye-wateringly expensive as London or Paris. And it often makes sense to meet in territory that’s neutral to everyone, which helps to break down barriers between higher and lower ranking employees, or those from different cultural backgrounds.

Why Mauritius?

For these kinds of scenarios, the island of Mauritius is perfectly placed as a business meeting venue. The tropical climate and diverse multicultural heritage immediately puts everyone at ease, regardless of where they’re from. The geographical location of Mauritius makes it ideally suited to teams working between Europe and southern Africa, Australia and Asia. And the popularity of Mauritius as a tourism destination makes it an obvious choice for combining business with, yes, pleasure – which is equally important, as we’re sure you’ll agree.

Stopover Mauritius

Our new Stopover Mauritius programme is ideally suited to those flying from South Africa, Madagascar, Malaysia and Australia. For passengers whose flight connections result in a transit period of between 6 and 24 hours, Air Mauritius will offer one night’s free accommodation, meals and ground transportation. To qualify, eligible transiting passengers must already hold confirmed onward tickets and be booked on the first available connection departing within 24 hours.

But if you want to extend your stay, Stopover visitors also enjoy attractive discounts in Mauritius hotels for up to a maximum of two further nights. So there’s plenty of time to get some work done and still see a bit of the island.

For more details about Stopover Mauritius Plus, including the full terms and conditions, visit our website.

Getting stuff done

To the uninitiated, Mauritius may appear to be nothing more than a holiday destination with a string of beautiful beachfront hotels. But in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Not only are the majority of these beachfront hotels well placed for business meetings and events – just take a look at the facilities of Le Meridien Ile Maurice, The Oberoi and The St. Regis for starters – but there are also a number of dedicated Mauritius business hotels too, in the shape of Hennessy Park, The Address, and Labourdonnais Waterfront Hotel to name but three – the latter being right in the heart of the financial and business centre of Port Louis, the island’s capital city.

Post-work fun

And when the day is done, what could be better than powering down the laptop in the knowledge that, instead of cramming onto a packed subway train with thousands of other commuters, you can step into the shimmering Indian ocean instead?

Organising your meeting or conference in Mauritius gives all employees the opportunity to wind down, get better acquainted with their colleagues, and most importantly, to feel valued. A happy employee is a more productive employee, after all. As a special incentive, you could even include an extra day or two in the itinerary to explore the island further afield. Anything is possible. So when it comes to choosing the venue for your next big company get-together – consider Mauritius.

Photos: St Régis, Le Meridien Ile Maurice, Balaclava beach.