A destination management company, or DMC, is an organization that specializes in corporate travel planning. They handle transportation, entertainment, food, hotel, and travel reservations, plus a million other details that can leave your head spinning.
Essentially, DMC companies are outsourced partners who provide local expertise, connections, and logistical insights for organizations planning a corporate event.
But do you really need one for your next corporate retreat or team building event? Let’s dive into destination management companies, when they’re needed, the benefits of working with them, and how to choose one that works for you.
What Are Destination Management Companies?
First things first—what is a destination management company? It’s a specialized service provider that oversees the logistics of planning corporate events and travel.
These companies can handle all aspects of your business travel needs.
Unlike travel agencies, which primarily handle bookings, most destination management companies will offer services specifically tailored to business events and group travel.
Destination Management Company Services
Whether you’re organizing a sales kickoff in Boston, an executive retreat in Las Vegas, or something closer to home, understanding the role and value of destination management companies helps you make informed decisions about your approach.
The exact services (and prices) provided will depend on the destination management company you’re working with. That said, there are standard offerings that you’re likely to find at most DMCs.
Here’s what you can typically expect from the best destination management companies.
Logistics and Planning
- Transportation planning: Unless you’re hosting an event in your home city, your DMC will likely handle all your transportation needs, from plane tickets and airport transfers to shuttle services and bus rentals.
- Venue selection: If you don’t know where you’re staying, most DMCs will find and reserve the spaces you need for meetings, dinners, team building events, and more. They may also provide a list of preferred venues for you to choose from.
- Accommodation reservations: If you need accommodations, your DMC will typically reserve group room blocks at local hotels so your team can stay near each other for convenience.
- Itinerary planning: If you don’t have time to plan your team’s itinerary for an upcoming event, DMCs can create detailed schedules based on your objectives and desired experiences. This is where TeamBonding comes into the picture: we regularly work with DMCs to bring companies’ visions to life and provide top-notch team building experiences. Our Director of Sales Samantha Goldstein explains how we work together:
“When a client partners with both us and a DMC, it takes the event to the next level. While we craft the experience itself, the DMC helps bring it all together: finding the perfect location to end a scavenger hunt, securing the ideal spot for your Summer Camp Throwback, arranging transportation, and even helping create the perfect signature cocktail to match the vibe.”
Local Connections
- Insider information: Destination management companies can provide valuable insider insights into the best times to visit a location, even if you’re a local. And if you’re traveling somewhere new, they can help with local customs and cultural considerations.
- Vendor relationships: You may be able to find a DMC that can use connections to local vendors to secure discounted rates. However, you’ll need to consider if the discounts are worth the price of hiring a DMC.
- Permit acquisition: If you have paperwork and permits that need handling, your destination management company will typically take care of any details like permits for special events, activities, and venues.
- Contingency planning: It’s always a good idea to have a contingency plan—most DMCs will offer to reserve backup spaces to account for risks like unexpected weather.
Experience Curation
- Food coordination: Whether your team will be enjoying casual lunches, gala dinners, or food-tasting events, your destination management company will likely offer services for coordinating your food and drink needs.
- Entertainment reservations: Most DMCs will help you book local speakers, performers, and special guests that you’d like to have attend your event.
- Theme development: If you don’t have a unified theme or creative concept for your upcoming event, your destination management company may be able to help you pick and coordinate one.
- Activity planning: Destination management companies can help you plan activities designed to showcase any location or theme you have in mind. Our TeamBonding team often combines our unique local event knowledge with that of DMCs’, explains Samantha:
“We often partner with DMCs to bring local team building into the city, whether that be a Chowder Cook Off in Newport, RI, a custom Mobsters & Lobsters game show in Boston, or a charitable event to support the local foodbank.”
Support and Services
- Translation services: If you’re heading somewhere with a language barrier, your DMC can help secure translation services for each event and location on your itinerary.
- VIP services: Your DMC may offer to handle all special arrangements for executives and other important clients to ensure a flawless experience and good impression.
- Tech support: If your event will require AV equipment, WiFi solutions, and other tech—and most do—your destination management company can offer support to keep things running smoothly.
- Professional coordinators: Everything works better with on-site staff, and destination management companies will provide all the staff and coordinators you need. This includes event facilitators, as Samantha explains:
“When we partner with a DMC, we become an extension of their team. They handle the venue, the menu, the vision and we step in to bring the team building and experiences that tie it all together.”
Do You Need a Destination Management Company?
You likely won’t need a destination management company for every corporate trip, but they can be nice to have in a lot of cases! It’s usually a comparison of time versus money, like many things in life.
Let’s take a look at both sides of the coin so you can decide for yourself.
Time: Hiring a Destination Management Company
When you decide to work with a DMC, it’s often because the event you’re planning will be complex or you don’t have time to handle the details on your own.
Here are some common reasons why you might choose to work with a destination management company:
- You’re traveling to an unfamiliar location: If you’re organizing a retreat in a country or city where you have limited connections and knowledge, a DMC can be a valuable resource with local expertise to save you time.
- Your event will have complex logistics: If your company trip involves multiple venues, large groups, specialized transportation needs, and complex schedules, it’s often easier to leave it all up to one destination management company.
- You’re short on time: Planning a successful corporate event requires a lot of time—if that resource is in short supply for your company right now, a DMC to handle all the destination management allows you to focus on the core work details.
- You need guaranteed quality for an essential event: If you’re organizing a high-stakes event, there’s little room for error. DMCs provide a level of professionalism that’s often beyond your internal teams.
If any of these sound like the situation you’re in, working with a destination management company might be a great idea.
Money: Handling the Planning Yourself
Many companies choose not to work with a DMC. Why? Because it’s typically more cost-effective, even with local discounts.
In this case, you’d be handling the logistics, planning, experience curation, and tech support on your own. Or, at least, you’ll handle outsourcing these services on your own, which allows you to find the best deal for each one.
Here’s what that might look like:
- Logistics: Hire a travel agent to book your team’s travel, accommodations, and food arrangements, or trust this to your internal event planner.
- Planning: Choose the venues and organize the itinerary with your internal event planner or team leaders.
- Insider info: Ask for insider info from the companies you’re working with and research local customs as needed. For example, at TeamBonding, our expert event facilitators are happy to share insider knowledge for each location.
- Experience curation: Let your team leaders or internal event planner pick a theme for your event and find local experiences to enjoy. It often helps to align your theme with your company culture.
- Support: Hire a travel planner for VIPs to ensure they have good experiences and lean on organizations you’re working with for support when needed. Again, at TeamBonding, we’ll provide tech and support staff as needed.
If you’re concerned about your bottom line and don’t mind finding the right companies to outsource these details yourself, you might be in the clear to skip the destination management company.
Finding the Middle Ground
As with many things in life, businesses often need to find a middle ground to protect their bottom line and their time. Here’s what that might look like:
- Partial DMC services: Many DMCs offer partial services so you can hire them for areas where they add the most value. For example, many TeamBonding clients hire us separately and leave travel reservations to their destination management company.
- Hybrid planning: Some companies prefer to handle some logistics internally while outsourcing specialized components to individual event planners, team building companies, and travel agencies.
- Activity partnerships: If you have internal event planners, consider working with focused event providers like TeamBonding for team building activities and handling the rest internally.
Pros and Cons of Destination Management Companies
Now that we understand common reasons to hire a destination management company and why some organizations choose not to, let’s explore the pros and cons.
Pros
Working with a destination management company offers several benefits. For example:
- Time savings and improved time management
- Stress reduction for your internal teams
- Risk management and worry-free backup plans
- Guaranteed participant experiences for VIPs
- Local expertise and assistance with cultural navigation
- Single point of contact for all event coordination needs
Cons
There are pros and cons to everything, especially in the world of business. Here are some of the potential drawbacks to working with a DMC:
- Service fees for DMCs often include a 15-25% markup
- Premium pricing for events may not work with modest budgets
- Reduced budget transparency and difficulty in itemizing costs
- Risk of a standardized, cookie-cutter experience
- Reduced control and direct oversight of events
- Not always necessary for events
The Bottom Line: Do You Need a Destination Management Company or Not?
Pros and cons, outlines, and other data can only take you so far. If you’re already herding cats and need to decide right now whether you’re hiring a DMC or not, we have you covered.
At the end of the day, it’s all about the value proposition. Only you and your team know how this will shake out for your specific company.
That said, we’ve highlighted some questions designed to help you decide:
- Do you lack an internal event planner or a team with specialized event expertise?
- Are you traveling to a country with a language barrier or unfamiliar customs?
- Will the planning for your event require coordinating complex logistics and multiple moving parts?
- Are you short on time and internal resources for planning?
- Are the stakes for this event high and will it have multiple client-facing events?
- Is your budget sufficient to cover DMC services while achieving your event and year-end goals?
If you answered yes to several of these questions, it might be a good idea to work with a destination management company.
On the other hand, if you answered no to most of these questions, planning the event internally might be the best option for your organization.
Balancing Support and Control
The decision to hire a destination management company is unique to every organization.
Remember, even if you choose not to work with a full-service destination management company, you can still partner with specialized providers to enhance specific aspects of your trip.
For example, TeamBonding activity planning services and event facilitators specialize in delivering memorable, compelling team experiences without the comprehensive scope (and cost) of full-scale travel management and coordination.
Ready to explore team building options for your next company trip? We have over 200 proven programs to choose from and facilitators with local expertise around the country.
Contact us today to start planning your perfect team building experience.
