More than casino nights and seaside views, Atlantic City is prime territory for team building.
Destination AC (609.345.0199), a local DMC, provides a smorgasbord of team-building activities, taking advantage of the city’s resort venues and natural surroundings. Using its Atlantic Ocean setting, beach options run the gamut from typical beach Olympics activities and Survivor challenges to beach volleyball tournaments.
"We bring in college teams that will work with our groups for instruction and to manage tournaments for us," says Kristen Barse, national sales and account manager for Destination AC. "We’ve gone as far as having shirts made for each team. We can combine tournaments with barbecues on the beach, and add in the classic games like horseshoes and paddleball."
Destination AC can also arrange fishing outings for groups, including fishing tournaments. Another option is a sand sculpting program where the company brings in local sand sculpting artist John Gowdy for instruction on how to create the perfect sand castle.
Surf lessons are also popular for small groups of up to 15 people, according to Barse.
"We have a lot of professional surfers in the area," she says. "We can bring out up to three people per instructor and give an intro to surfing."
The two-hour program starts early in the morning on any of Atlantic City’s various beaches and can be paired with breakfast at the Chelsea Hotel.
Heading inland, groups can participate in clay shooting in the Pine Barrens 20 minutes from Atlantic City and even turn the adventure into a competition, with groups breaking up into teams and learning from a local clay shooting champion. Programs are often topped off with an outdoor barbecue.
Indoors, cooking classes are available with local chefs for small groups, as is a cocktail mixology class, during which groups can master three or four cocktails and pair the event with a dinner or even cook their own, all at their host hotel.
As for the casino programs, Destination AC can bring in professional dealers. Guests receive faux money with their company logo and can experience instruction and mini competition playing blackjack, craps, roulette and poker.
A key component for Destination AC is its full range of corporate social responsibility programs.
"We do many give-back programs, some of which benefit local community programs," Barse says, citing organizations such as Big Brothers Big Sisters, The Arc of Atlantic City, Gilda’s Club and the Food Bank of South Jersey.
"Our Build a Bike, Build a Book Shelf or Go Green Racing team-building programs are all give-back team-builders to offer on-site at an Atlantic City hotel," Barse says. "We surprise the group by bringing in the children to accept gifts—their own bikes made by the group and bookshelves with a donation of the group’s favorite books for local schools. We also do a cooking program that benefits local preschools with teams racing to create healthy snack packs for kids."
Go Green Racing is another team-building activity in which groups compete in challenges to earn the parts to a model solar energy race car. The schools receive the cars along with a solar energy classroom kit to use in the schools. Dragon boat races can also be arranged directly with a nonprofit organization to benefit a local charity.
"This is a great program for small groups," Barse explains. "They get to go out on the bay and learn how to work together collectively to race the boat. The coaches are members of the charity, and the profits benefit their cause."
The DMC’s geo Boardwalk photo scavenger hunt can also serve as a give-back program, with each team representing a different charity and the winning team earning a donation toward its represented charity.
Other programs Destination AC offers include planting and building a garden for assisted living facilities, painting pantry shelves and working in the food bank store.
