ACTIVITIES & INCENTIVE TRAVEL
Whether you're looking for employee incentive ideas, teambuilding ideas or just delegate packages for your conference, France has some wonderful opportunities - and Béziers is ideally placed to give you the best of these options. With its three unusual venues and stunning surroundings, the town is a dream destination for conference and incentive travel.
Béziers sits in one of the world's most important wine growing regions, traversed by the beautiful Canal du Midi, with the Mediterranean sea just 10km to the south and the mountains of Haut Languedoc 30km to the north. Your incentive trip could be as adrenaline-charged or as gentle as you please.
Below are just a few ideas for activities and incentive travel, France.
Pump up the adrenaline
Looking for incentive tourism ideas for adrenaline junkies, or just want a delegate package that will wake people up? If you're looking for adventure-based incentives, France offers few better regions than around Béziers, where mountain terrain, deep canyons and surging waves are all within easy striking distance. Great for pepping up flagging delegates or providing an enthusiasm-boosting incentive trip for employees.
Coastal watersports
If your wish list includes sun, sea and team building, France is the obvious choice with it's stunning Mediterranean coast and watersports options. Sailing lessons, jet skiing, windsurfing, kite surfing and waterskiing are among the sports offered at resorts such as Valras-Plage, Sérignan-Plage, Vendres and Le Cap d'Adge, all close to Béziers. You could also organise a sailing trip or a game fishing expedition. There's everything you need on this coast for marine-themed incentive tourism.
Mountain activities
Do you need employee incentives or team building activities to get the heart racing? Walking, mountain biking or horseriding in the rugged Haut Languedoc Regional Natural Park are some of the active options in the mountains. Or you could organise a climbing or caving adventure, shoot the mountain rapids in a kayak, or go bungee jumping from a viaduct. For something different, you could try canyoning, which involves travelling in the deep gorges using a combination of climbing, abseiling, scrambling and swimming. In the winter, add snow shoeing to the mix of outdoor team building activities on offer.
Forest ropes and zip lines
Here's an unusual team building activity: let your employees test their acrobatic abilities at an adventure trail in the forest, using high wires, zip lines, nets and other methods to get from tree to tree. There are two centres near Béziers offering this type of activity. Paintball can also be included.
Motorsports and airsports
Karting is offered at Vias-Plage and Sérignan. Also in the region, motorsports activity packages can be organised for seminar groups, corporate and incentive travel groups and team building. These can include buggy driving, 4x4 and quad biking. If you want to get airborne, there's a microlighting centre at Vendres and a flying club at Vias.
Take time out
If you're looking for something more gentle in the way of meetings and incentive travel, try some of these ideas:
Canal cruising
When it comes to conference & incentive travel or team building, outdoor activities don't have to be heart-pumping. Take canal cruising, for instance. Béziers sits on the Canal du Midi - a beautiful, tree lined canal built in the 17th century to link the Atlantic with the Mediterranean. Options for canal cruising range from traditional barges to hi-tech motor launches. If you want to navigate the canal rather than just take a boat trip, canal boats can be hired without a licence. It's also possible to stay on the canal overnight in a barge hotel.
Wine tasting visits
Béziers is located in an important wine producing region, making it an ideal location for delegate packages and employee motivation incentives based on wine tasting. They're sure to be popular! Many wine cellars are open to the public, including the stunning 17th century cellars at the Château de Raissac, where wine making dates back to Roman times. You could also visit the Béziers Méditerranée Oenopole, which sells and promotes wines on behalf of local vineyards, offering wine tasting sessions and mini tours. Another idea for your meeting and incentive travel package is to combine wine tasting with a canal trip, by booking a wine tasting cruise.
Golf at St Thomas
If it's just employee motivation incentives you're looking for, then the golfers in your team will love the St Thomas golf course near Béziers. Designed by Patrice Lammbert, the 18 holes at the course are varied and challenging, but playing here's a relaxing experience too. This is one of the most peaceful and beautiful courses in the South of France, set in the 'garrige' - the scented Mediterranean shrubland. While you're playing you might see ducks, partridges, hares or rabbits.
The rugby stadium
With 11 French championship titles under its belt, Béziers' local rugby club, ASBH, plays at the Stade de la Méditerranée - the most unusual of Béziers' large conference and meeting venues. If you're holding an event in Béziers, why not stay on to watch a rugby match while you're here, or use rugby as the theme for an unusual incentive travel package?
Get festive
To see the city in full swing, you could time your event in Béziers to coincide with one of the major festivals. Whatever the season, there's something going on. Whether you're planning a conference, incentive travel package or team building activity, basing it around a major event will give it a different dimension.
May: Caritas medieval festival
The Caritats medieval festival takes the whole town back to the days of knights and troubadours, with many local people dressing up in medieval costume for the event. Over two days, Béziers becomes a riot of colour, with a medieval pageant, parades, historical spectacles, traditional games, jousting, a medieval banquet, craft shows and a farmers market.
June: Canal du Midi festival
Béziers and neighbouring towns join forces every summer to celebrate the Canal du Midi Festival, at the Fonseranes locks - a remarkable series of 9 locks at Béziers. The event includes exhibitions, a farmers' market with local produce, plays, creative workshops, guided tours and a son & lumière show, as well as boat trips on the canal.
August: Féria bull festival
Every year in August, the ‘Féria de Béziers’ bull festival takes over the town. A million visitors descend on Béziers for this riotous fiesta. Although centred on the dramatic action in the bull ring, the festive spirit spills out into the bars, cafés, streets and surrounding villages.
October: Béziers wine festival
Béziers lays on a great party every year to celebrate the arrival of the new season’s wine, with events and entertainments in and around the city. The festival brings a real splash of colour to the streets of Béziers, with the tree-lined Allées Paul Riquet forming the centre of the action. The festivities include street entertainments, wine tasting in the bars and wine cellars, a procession and mass to bless the wine, and cycling excursions through the vineyards.
December: Christmas market and fair
For 20 days in December, the Béziers Christmas Market and Grand Winter Fair is in full swing, in the lively pedestrian area around the theatre and Les Allées Paul Riquet - the town's main thoroughfare. The streets are lined with stalls selling crafts and produce, original Christmas gift ideas, Christmas decorations, and local specialties. Plenty to get your team into the Christmas spirit.
Contact us
The Béziers convention bureau, France, can advise you on all the opportunities for delegate packages, incentive tourism and team building activities in the area, and help you to organise a programme.
Contact the convention bureau team:
Palais des Congrès
29 Avenue Saint Saëns
34500 BÉZIERS
Tel: +33 (0)4 67 76 84 00
Fax: +33 (0)4 67 62 29 05
E-mail: congres@ville-Béziers.fr
