Not every company has the time or budget for a week-long murder mystery cruise vacation; however, there are murder mystery dinners available on river cruises and harbor cruises throughout the country. These single-evening events are fun employee incentives and are a great option for an opening icebreaker for your next convention or corporate meeting.

If your headquarters or next event is located in the Pacific Northwest, you can enjoy a beautiful harbor cruise set against the Seattle skyline by joining Argosy Cruises and Events on the Edge Productions for a murder mystery dinner cruise. For more information, visit www.argosycruises.com.

Across the country in Boston, your participants are sure to enjoy the Boston Harbor Mystery Cruise, Marriage can be Murder. You can obtain more information or book tickets at www.mysterycafe.com.

In Wilmington, North Carolina, Cape Fear Riverboats offers a hearty Southern dinner for the guest sleuths on their two-hour Murder Mystery Cruise that travels along the beautiful Cape Fear River. The menu, dates and ticket options can be found at www.cfrboats.com.

If you are planning your next convention in Savannah, the Savannah Riverboat Murder Mystery Cruise along the Savannah River would make a great first night event. This 90-minute cruise is offered on Thursday evenings and can be booked at www.savannahtours.us.

Are you looking for unique, affordable ways to motivate staff, award employees who met their sales goals, or encourage cohesion, communication and camaraderie among your team members? If so, you may have already discovered that many team building and employee incentive options are rather expensive and may not fit your budget. This is particularly true during the current economic crisis, which has forced more and more companies to get creative when searching for ways to reward or motivate their team as the funds for these types of activities shrink. And, as luck would have it, when team building and employee appreciation budgets are getting tighter due to dropping profits is exactly the time when you need your team to be more motivated and cohesive than ever.

Thankfully, there are plenty of affordable options available that will allow you to create an exciting team building experience or incentive for less than $200 per person.

Here are some examples:

• Organizing ride-alongs for employees to experience the exhilaration of a stock car racing around a track
• Scheduling full- or half-day white water rafting trips
• Arranging one- or two-day customized nature or outdoor adventure programs at a local wilderness area
• Finding a local company that offers bungee jumping

The last blog about inspiring employees with incentive travel was a synopsis of Fay Beauchine’s philosophy on getting more out of the average producer by rewarding top producers. That is only part of the story, however–the rest of the story lies with you.

To illustrate your role fully, let’s assume your client is sold on incentive travel for her top producer, and after your research into his background and hobbies, you decide that he might like a trip to Cancun. This is great since travel to Cancun is cheap due to crime waves (which don’t even affect that area) and the long-gone h1n1 flu.

While this may inspire others who would like to go to Cancun, it may not inspire everyone. Remember that you are trying to get more out of many people, not just the one getting the reward. You need to work with your client along these lines to see what would light the proverbial fire under the greatest number of backsides.

You should seriously consider working with the client to create several different options. These are options that everyone will find out about. Although you probably know that your top producer is going to pick the week in Cancun over the trip to Paris or United Kingdom, you also know the woman who plays Irish fiddle for a hobby is watching, as is the man who collects World War II memorabilia.

Know all the people you’re trying to impress and you will help your client get much better results out of everyone on her staff next year.