A corporate offsite in the Moroccan desert is not one more original idea on the list of destinations. It is a format that answers a precise problem: when a team needs to talk properly, to settle questions of substance or to rebuild a group, a hotel meeting room is no longer enough. You need a place that genuinely cuts people off from the everyday.
We have already explained why the Sahara works so well as a corporate destination in our complete guide to the corporate offsite in the desert. This article answers the next question, the one office managers and executive teams ask once they move on to practical organisation: how many days, what programme, what logistics, and how a buyout actually works.
The place in two sentences
Umnya Desert Camp is a private luxury camp in the heart of Erg Chegaga, the largest wild dune field in Morocco, 60 km past M’Hamid El Ghizlane. Eight tent suites with private bathrooms, one group at a time, and a simple rule for companies: full buyout, your group and nobody else.
The camp welcomes 2 to 18 guests, and up to 20 with extra beds. That covers an extended executive committee, a project team, a circle of managers, or a board travelling with partners. For an offsite with real substance it is the right scale: enough people for group dynamics, few enough that everyone gets heard.
Three days, two nights: the short reset
The shortest workable format, designed for crowded calendars. Two nights is our minimum stay.
- Day 1: morning flight into Marrakech, transfer (4x4 through the Draa valley, or helicopter to save half a day), arrival, first session on the dunes late in the afternoon, dinner around the fire
- Day 2: a full working day at the camp, sessions in the morning in the covered majlis or outdoors, a collective activity in the afternoon (dune trek, 4x4, workshop), closing session at sunset, evening together
- Day 3: free morning or a wrap up session, return to Marrakech, evening flight
This format works for a single, clearly stated objective: settling a strategic direction, opening a year, marking a result. The helicopter transfer, described on our helicopter to the desert page, takes 1 hour 40 from Marrakech and carries five or six people per rotation, which makes the format compatible with senior management diaries.
Four days, three nights: the balance
The most requested format, and the one we recommend by default. The third night is what gives you two full working days, and it changes the nature of the stay: the first day is spent arriving, the second working, and it is on the third that a group reaches the level of conversation it came for. The desert has a documented effect on sleep and mental availability, which we describe in our article on sleep after several nights in the Sahara.
The typical programme alternates working blocks in the morning, activities in the afternoon and informal time in the evening, with one full screen free day if the company wants it. Activities serve the offsite instead of decorating it: treks led by our Sahrawi guides, team challenges in 4x4 across the dunes (see our article on the 4x4 team building raid), a Berber cookery workshop, a night of stargazing under a Bortle 1 sky.
Five days: the offsite that changes something
For leadership teams dealing with heavy subjects (a merger, a succession, a repositioning, a growth crisis), five days allow a complete cycle: put the subjects on the table, work them, let them rest, decide, and leave with a plan. This format comes close to our structured executive retreats, whose full logistics are set out in our guide to planning an executive retreat in Morocco and on our Sahara corporate retreat page.
Over five days we usually add a full expedition day away from the camp, towards Lake Iriki or the palm groves of the Draa valley, which gives the programme room to breathe.
What a buyout includes
On buyout the camp runs entirely for your group:
- The eight tent suites and every shared space: the covered majlis for plenary sessions, outdoor lounges, dune terraces for breakout groups
- Catering built around you: adapted menus, service times set by your programme, light lunches on working days, proper dinners in the evening
- The full resident team, guides included
- The activities written into the programme we build together beforehand
- Structural confidentiality: no other guests, no outside staff, no network to leak anything. There is no signal at the camp except at the top of the big dune, and the camp manager carries a satellite phone for anything urgent. For executive committees this is often the deciding argument.
What we prepare with you beforehand: the airport shuttle, the working equipment (the majlis has a video projector, a screen and paperboards, all running on solar power, and documents are printed before departure), dietary requirements, and the precise sequencing of the programme.
Getting there
The journey is part of the format, not one of its constraints. Direct daily flights reach Marrakech from the main European cities. From there, two options:
- By road: about 8 hours 45 from Marrakech through Ouarzazate and the Draa valley to M’Hamid El Ghizlane, including 1 hour 30 of track in 4x4. The convoy crossing the dunes is already a group moment. Full itinerary in our guide how to get to Erg Chegaga.
- By helicopter: 1 hour 40 from Marrakech, landing directly at the camp, five or six seats per rotation. Suited to short formats and to management teams under time pressure.
Most groups combine the two: road on the way in for the gradual decompression, air on the way back.
Season and budget
The camp is open from September to June and closed in July and August. From October to April, days sit between 18 and 28 degrees. In December and January, count on 18 to 24 by day and 2 to 8 at night, which is what makes the evenings around the fire memorable. The season by season detail is in our guide to the best time to visit Erg Chegaga.
A buyout is quoted as a single global rate for the whole camp, set case by case according to your request, never per person, with one invoice in the company name. The full buyout terms are set out on our host your retreat page.
Asking for a proposal
Send us your possible dates, the size of the group, the objective of the offsite and the format you have in mind through our contact page or our dedicated corporate events page. We reply in writing within 24 hours with a detailed programme and a complete budget, transfers included.
Your teams have done offsites before. They have probably never done the one they will still be talking about in ten years.
If the length is not settled yet, the page how many nights in the desert explains what each additional night adds, and what a day at the camp really looks like.
For an executive committee rather than a group of friends, the page executive offsite in Morocco covers the working majlis, the confidentiality agreement and invoicing to the company.
