In the wake of the terrible Tanay bus tragedy that claimed the lives of many students and injured many more, Manila Event Organizers and Team Building Facilitators scramble to reexamine their priorities in selecting venues and more important, destinations for this year’s company outings and team building events.
Up till recently, organizers of out-of-town company and social events had paid attention to other things like facilities, costs and action features of the venues. The journeys to these destinations bear little, if any at all, importance to the selection process for an event venue. All this just changed overnight with the news of this terrible bus accident. It is hard for event organizers not to wonder in their minds whether the selection of that destination was indeed a prudent one. Could this kind of accidents have been avoided and the lives of these wonderful children have been spared if journey safety had been given higher priority in the selection process?
Surely no destination, even those inside Metro Manila can be rated as accident-proof. Accidents can happen even within the safety of one’s home, school or office. So the responsibility of the event organizer is not to guarantee safety but to minimize risks. Here are some obvious ways to reduce risks that are present in the journey to and from an event destination:
DISTANCE TO DESINTATION
All being equal, logic dictates that the longer the journey, the greater is the risk of an accident. That is why prudent even organizers look for destinations that is as near to Manila as possible. While distance is an important deciding factor, the length of the journey should also be measured in terms of travel time. For example, a 70km journey can be under an hour if most or all of it is on expressways. This same 70km journey can easily bloat to 2 or even 3 hours if a lot of it goes through towns and cities.
TERRTAIN AND ROAD QUALITY
Terrain of the journey is another contributing factor to major road accidents. Although accidents have been known to happen even on the flattest roads on the most benign terrain, these accidents are invariably caused by reckless driving. A diligent event organizer will personally check the record of the bus driver(s) prior to the event, to reduce risk exposures. But in treacherous hilly terrains, even the best drivers are tested and the safety odds plummets drastically.
Road surface quality is a huge contributing factor to road accident. Journeys to most out-of-town destinations accessible from Manila involve some city and even rural roads. A good driver should be able navigate these safely and avoid major accidents. Expressways provide better road surface and as long as the driver observes traffic regulations, the risk is generally much lower on these high-quality roadways.
More about contributing factors to major road accidents …..
Manila events organizers will not let accidents and horror stories stop them from bringing team building and company outings out of town this summer. That won’t be changing anytime soon. What will change if it hasn’t changed already by now, is the priority of organizers when choosing a suitable venue for these events outside Manila. Destinations involving high-risk journeys through hazardous terrains and inferior roads will largely be discarded in favor of safer destinations involving shorter travel time on high-quality and safer roads. Destinations such as Clark Freeport
in Pampanga for example would be favored. The short travel time of just 45 minutes is spent entirely on expressways (NLEX connecting to SCTex leading straight into the heart of Clark Freeport) after leaving Metro Manila. There are a number of high-quality venues for teambuilding and company events in the resorts inside Clark Freeport to choose from.
The saying that getting there is half the fun might apply to holiday seekers looking for adventures and surprises. To the professional event organizers looking for reliable and safe venues for team building and company outings outside of Manila, surprises are the last thing they desire. Getting everybody there safely on time with plenty of energy left for activities to be enjoyed in the team building venue is what organizers work hard to ensure for every event that will take place this year.