If you are in the process of planning your next management or team strat session, consider taking it out of the office and into a location such as Kruger Gate Hotel. Not only does the hotel provide luxury accommodation at the Kruger National Park, but the state-of-the-art meeting facilities teamed with the breathtaking location, makes it an excellent choice for a strat session with a difference.

Just a 4 hour long drive from Johannesburg, the Kruger National Park is the perfect nature-based, conference destination. With an abundance of animal and plant life, the Kruger National Park boasts over 2 000 plant species with 336 tree species, 500 bird species, six of which are known as the Big 6 and are native to the area. And, of course, it is also home to the beloved Big 5. Beyond the impressive biodiversity, the Kruger National Park possesses 254 known cultural heritage sites, which includes 130 rock art sites. Kruger Gate Hotel is just 100m away from an entrance into the park, and offers uninterrupted views into the Kruger National Park while providing a peaceful respite between your strat sessions.

With all the classical amenities and high-tech equipment that professional conference organisers (PCOs) expect from a conference venue on offer, along with the added attraction of being at the Kruger National Park, our location is a holistic destination that serves as a creative stimulant and an oasis from which professionals can recharge.The versatility of over 200 square metres of meeting space at the Kruger Gate Hotel extends from hosting small, executive board meetings, to large schoolroom set-ups for 200 delegates and banqueting for 150. Additionally, corporates can opt for our Executive Retreat package, an exclusive Kruger experience for small groups of up to ten in the Nkanyi Presidential Suite. This package includes: accommodation in the Presidential suite, conference set-up in your suite as well as a half-day private safari vehicle that can assist with those bucket-list Kruger Park sightings.

With a variety of Kruger National Park conference and event packages, there is something that suits the budget of most businesses. Additionally, the team is also able to assist in booking Kruger National Park activities for you and your group.

If all of this doesn’t convince you, maybe science will. Studies suggest that it is beneficial to provide professionals with access to natural environments of different kinds in order to support the creative processes. There are two types of attention, according to the Attention Restoration Theory (ART) by Steven Kaplan (1995). One refers to the direct attention system, which is used in unnatural urban environments such as an office environment. In these environments, our brains receive millions of bits of information per second,however, only a fraction of this information is cognitively processed. The rest we have to sort out, and this demands energy, which will become mentally tiring (Kaplan, 1995). The other type is spontaneous attention, or soft fascination, which is the ability to experience things unnoticed, thus stimulating the brain without being mentally tiring. This type of attention is used and stimulated in nature (Kaplan et al., 1998).

In addition to this, insights from Gartner’s 9 Future of Work Trends for 2023 report reveal that the demands of today’s working environment have left managers feeling mentally fatigued. It is no surprise that the pandemic has changed the nature of the working world, with the remote and hybrid working models having become the new normal and in fact form part of the criteria for employees when selecting their next employer. Management therefore experiences the dual pressures of having to provide remote work options and tending to employees’ evolving needs and expectations. For example, where employees were once happy to meet in stuffy boardrooms or conference centres, many are now looking for events and locations that are less conventional. To respond to this, it is imperative that organisations prioritise support for those in management positions. This can be done by investing in strategic sessions set in environments that are conducive to these employees’ mental well-being and creativity as this will allow them to conceptualise new and innovative ways of advancing employee productivity and as a result increase organisational profitability. One such way is to choose a holistic conferencing destination that extends beyond a stiff boardroom.