Private Island vs Palace
Two ways to run a company offsite, side by side — group size, budget, where each concentrates, and the estates worth booking.
Plan a RetreatPrivate Island
Whole-island buyout — total privacy and a captive company.
- Venues
- 18 exclusive-buyout estates
- Typical group
- 10–500 guests
- Indicative budget
- $1,200–$2,350 pp/night
- Concentrated in
- Caribbean & Latin America · Australasia · Southeast Asia
- Best for
- leadership, celebration, team building
Palace
Heritage palace hotels — ceremony, service, and old-world scale.
- Venues
- 14 exclusive-buyout estates
- Typical group
- 20–600 guests
- Indicative budget
- $425–$1,025 pp/night
- Concentrated in
- South & East Asia · Mediterranean Europe · Africa & Middle East
- Best for
- celebration, leadership, strategy
Atlantis Paradise Island
The Caribbean's only true large-conference campus that still feels like a holiday: 500,000+ sq ft of meeting space, a 50,000-sq-ft Imperial Ballroom that seats 4,000, plus 11-acre Aquaventure waterscape, an open-air marine habitat, a Tom Weiskopf golf course and a 63-slip mega-yacht marina. This is the one tropical basecamp that genuinely absorbs even several-hundred-strong companies — and well beyond — without partner overflow.
InterContinental Hayman Great Barrier Reef
The northernmost private island in the Whitsundays, taken whole, with 182 rooms, suites and villas and 15 indoor/outdoor event venues across the property. Guests arrive by a 50-minute yacht transfer from Hamilton Island, which makes the whole offsite feel like an expedition the moment it begins. Whitehaven Beach and the outer Great Barrier Reef are day-trips by tender.
Petit St. Vincent
A 115-acre private island resort in the southern Grenadines with 22 one- and two-bedroom cottages spread across the hillsides and beaches, holding up to 56 guests. No phones or TVs in the cottages, seven beaches and a whole island for an executive group.
Taj Falaknuma Palace
The former Nizam of Hyderabad's palace on a hill above the city, with a 101-seat state dining hall, a Durbar Hall and gardens that host events from 60 to 1,800. Guests arrive by horse-drawn carriage into one of India's grandest heritage settings.
Umaid Bhawan Palace (Taj)
One of the world's largest private residences, still partly home to the Jodhpur royal family, with a 64-key Taj wing set in 26 acres of formal gardens above the blue city. The plenary moves between the Majestic Banquet Hall (400) and the floodlit Palace Grounds (up to 1,200), and a full evening can be staged as a royal durbar with the Mehrangarh Fort lit on the skyline. Cultural immersion here is genuine, not themed.
Jai Mahal Palace
A restored early-20th-century palace on 18 acres of Mughal gardens in the heart of Jaipur, with about 100 rooms, seven meeting venues and lawns that stage evening functions for up to 2,000. Room for a full company kickoff with a genuine Rajasthani celebration built in.