What a team building day costs, and why two quotes are not comparable

It is the first question that arrives by email and the hardest to answer without lying, because the honest answer is that it depends on six things and none of them is the activity.

As a public reference point: in Chile, comparison sites and event producers put a team building day between 25,000 and 60,000 Chilean pesos per person, with the most produced experiences going past 80,000. The range is so wide it is useless for budgeting. It is useful for something else: if a proposal lands well below that floor, something is not included, and it is worth knowing what.

Those are market figures, not our rate card. Vivencias Travel does not publish a price list, because every event is built to order: the figure depends on the group, the date, the activity and what the proposal covers. The same programme for 40 people in May and for 120 in July are two different numbers, which is why what we hand over is a quote for your case rather than a catalogue price. What follows explains what sits behind that number, so you can read any proposal, ours included.

The six variables that move the price

1. Group size. The per-person price drops in steps, not smoothly. And the steps are not the supplier being generous: they are the capacity of a bus, a raft, a function room. A group of 48 and a group of 52 can carry very different per-person prices, because the second needs one more vehicle.
2. Whether transport is included. This is the difference that most often shows up at the end. For an activity out of town, transport is a real share of the cost, not a detail.
3. What food is included, and of what kind. A coffee break, a set-menu lunch and a catered barbecue are three different numbers.
4. The month. Everything rises in peak season: snow in July, year-end events in December. Those months also have less availability, so price is not the only thing that gets worse.
5. Weekday or weekend. For the same activity, a Tuesday is usually considerably cheaper than a Saturday, with fewer people around.
6. Actual duration. Half day, full day, or with an overnight. The big jump is not half day to full day: it is when accommodation enters.

What the cheap proposal tends to leave out

When one quote comes in well below the rest, one of these is usually missing:

• Transport, or only the outbound leg.
• Entry fees to a park, a reserve or a ski resort.
• Equipment hire, which in the snow is a significant share of the total.
• The on-site coordinator. Some proposals deliver the activity but nobody in charge of the group, which shows the day a flight is delayed or the weather turns.
• The weather plan B. If it is not quoted, it does not exist.
• Tax. Always check whether the number includes it, because between two proposals that alone can explain the gap.

How to actually compare two quotes

Ask for both at the same level of detail and go line by line:

• What happens to someone who cannot do the activity? Is an alternative quoted?
• How many guides or instructors per participant?
• Is transport both ways, from where, and with how much slack?
• What does the meal include, and how are dietary restrictions handled?
• Who is in charge of the group during the day?
• What happens if it rains, snows, or the road closes?
• Does the price change if the final group is smaller than estimated?

That last question prevents the most surprises. Almost every proposal is built on an estimated headcount, and if twenty fewer people turn up on the day, the cost per person rises. Better to know in advance how that is handled.

When paying more is worth it

Not always, but in these cases yes:

• When the group is large. The logistics of 150 people are half the job, and saving there is what produces the two-hour wait everyone remembers.
• When part of the day is work. If there is a meeting, the room equipment and the technical rehearsal are worth what they cost.
• When the group flies in from another city. There the margin for error gets expensive, and having someone solving things on the ground stops being a luxury.

How to ask for a quote that is worth having

An operator needs five things to build something real: what the event is for, how many people and their age and fitness profile, the date or date range, how many hours, and a budget range. That last one is not so it all gets spent: it is so you are not sent three proposals you were never going to approve.

If all you say is "we want to do team building", you get a generic itinerary. It is what happens when you ask an architect for "a house".

What to look at after the price

When proposals land at similar numbers, what decides is what each one does to the group. Team building activities and what each one is good for explains what each option produces in a team, and team building in Chile covers what sits within two hours of Santiago and which month suits what. If the group is over eighty people, team building for large groups explains what changes in the logistics and why the per-person price behaves differently.