New Zealand
Team building tourism in Queenstown
Queenstown's adventure tourism usually aims to get people to take time off from their day job but for one American-based company it is making the employees better at their jobs.
Seagate has been bringing its most promising employees to New Zealand for years and it says no other country in the world offers what they get in Queenstown.
The computer hard drive company selects 200 staff from all over the world as its future leaders and brings them to NZ to face new challenges in an unfamiliar environment.
"For some people they've never been outdoors, certainly not in a setting like this, and we're having them abseil and we've having them get in rafts and paddle down rivers and get on mountain bikes," says training organiser Woody Monroy.
The company says Queenstown is the only place in the world that provides that right mix of wild adventure with sound safety procedures.
"We're catering for 200 people and they are all the average Joe Human and we just want to challenge them...but not kill them," race team organiser Anna Bastin says.
The huge job is providing work for almost as many people as they're catering for and the company has now run five training courses in the region.
From New Zealand's point of view they are ideal tourists - they stay a while, do a lot and spend up large.
The budget for this week's training was around $3 million.
tvnz.co.nz
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