Corporate Retreat in Puglia: Why Companies Choose Salento and How to Plan It
A corporate retreat in Puglia has become a recurring choice for companies from northern Italy and, increasingly, for French, Belgian and Swiss ones: the flight is short, the region is still a discovery for many, and a masseria among the olive trees does what no conference centre can. This guide explains how to plan a company offsite in Italy well: where, in what kind of property, how to get there, what it costs, with a two-day programme as an example.
Valle d'Itria or Salento?
The Puglia of corporate retreats has two hearts. The Valle d'Itria (Ostuni, Fasano, Martina Franca) has the luxury resorts and the 50-room masserie: perfect for large conventions, with prices starting from 300 € per person per night. Salento (Lecce, Otranto, the Grecìa Salentina) has smaller masserie, in exclusive use, at half the price and with a more authentic territory: it is the right choice for small teams of 8 to 35 people who want a house, not a hotel. Masseria Montanari, in Carpignano Salentino, sits in the second heart: a vaulted hall, 16 sleeping places, countryside, and one group at a time.
Hotel or masseria in exclusive use
In a hotel you have a meeting room by the hour and bedrooms scattered over several floors; the group only comes together at the meetings. In a masseria in exclusive use you have everything in one place: the work room, the garden for breaks, the table, the rooms, and no other guests. For a retreat that has to produce decisions, and not just slides, the second option works better: the conversation carries on over dinner, and things come unstuck in the garden in the evening.
How to get there
The airport is Brindisi, 60 minutes from the masseria, with direct flights from Milan, Rome, Turin and Bologna, and seasonal ones from Paris, Brussels, Geneva, Zurich and London. Bari is 90 minutes away. The train reaches Lecce, 25 minutes away. We arrange the transfer by minibus from the airport; for groups of up to 16 a single vehicle is enough.
A two-day programme
Day 1. Arrival by 11, coffee in the garden, a work session in the vaulted hall until lunch. A sit-down Salento lunch. Afternoon: a second session, then an hour of team breathing led by Davide, the practice of the house that brings the group back into its body after six hours of words. Evening: dinner over the fire with a barbecue or a pignata (the traditional Salento terracotta pot, slow-cooked by the embers), and for those who wish, the murder mystery dinner with a script written to measure.
Day 2. A morning of work to close the decisions, lunch, and in the afternoon an activity out and about: Otranto, the menhirs of the Grecìa Salentina, the sea at Torre Sant'Andrea. Departure in the late afternoon for Brindisi.
It is the format we call the Full Experience when the day is built around a guiding thread tied to your line of work. The three formats, with prices, are on the Companies page.
The costs, in plain figures
For a two-day, one-night retreat for 15 people: the whole masseria for two days (from 500 to 800 € per day depending on the season), meals (60-80 € per person for two lunches and a dinner), activities and facilitation (from 60 to 120 € per person), the transfer. Indicative total between 220 and 300 € per person, against the 300-450 € per night charged by the Valle d'Itria properties for accommodation alone. The prices of the whole masseria are published.
When
Companies choose Puglia above all in May, June, September and October: mild temperatures, availability, the territory at its best. From November to March the masseria is even quieter, the hall is air-conditioned and prices come down: for a real working retreat, without the sea, it is the most economical season.
What to do around
The area is part of the retreat: Lecce and its baroque, Otranto and the cathedral with its mosaic, the villages of the Grecìa Salentina where griko is still spoken, the Adriatic beaches 20 minutes away. A well-spent free afternoon is worth an extra session.
How to ask for a proposal
On the Companies page there is a form with four questions: format, timings and meals, objective of the retreat, average age of the group. We usually reply within a day, in Italian, English and French; those who prefer leave a time and we call them.
<!-- leggi-anche:auto --> Read also: Team building ideas at the masseria, Planning an offsite at a masseria, Team building near Lecce: the three formats.