"What do you do the rest of the week?!"

For those of you who don't know me, I am Nicola Johnston and I have been part of Team Taste & Tour since early 2019! As Sales and Operations Manager, I am usually behind the scenes (in my element) listening, creating, planning and perfecting our experiences.

Ask anyone on our team and they will tell you I am a meticulous perfectionist… and maybe a little bit of a control freak. But I know they wouldn’t want me any other way!

Enough about me though!

Question - Did you know that we offer corporate and private experiences during the week?!

For years on our weekend public tours, our guides (and even Caroline and Phil) get asked "so, what do you do the rest of the week?!"... and oh how we laugh!

So if you've ever wondered the same, it might then be surprising to you that corporate and private bookings are now well over 60% of our business at Taste & Tour.  

We work with multinationals including "The Big 4" and the world's leading law firms as well as plenty of our own homegrown powerhouse businesses such as Hendersons, Power NI, NIE, and Almac... to name just a few. 

With that level of demand, we were very excited to launch a new brand just for our corporate clients, CoHost.

We have developed a range of really tasty packages to suit every group and budget, from 5-venue dining tours to wine or spirits tastings, food trail treasure hunts and even beer and cheese parties - we have made it our business to entertain your guests with amazing local food and drink in some of Belfast's best venues, we even have our own venue at The Spirit Circle and I haven’t even mentioned our boat yet, Ahoy Belfast.  Anyone fancy their own Below Deck experience on the River Lagan…!? Drama not included (that’s extra!)

And whilst that keeps us pretty busy, we love planning a good hen, stag or 'sten' party too and never shy away from a 30th/40th/50th/60th birthday party - we love being part of the celebrations!

We have lots of ideas to choose from, let's call it a mood board, but the end result is very much made to measure for your group. The more you tell us, the better we can make it for you but as someone said to me the other day "I got landed with planning this and to be honest, I am just farming it out to you to do the hard work." and funnily enough, that's exactly what we do!

Our experiences are designed for groups of 12 or more and there's no maximum - literally, the more the merrier! One time we had 200 people on a bespoke tour - I needed a very large local gin and tonic after that one...

One of the most rewarding parts of planning private tours has to be seeing the picture the guide takes of the group at the end of the tour. Those big authentic smiles and gin fuelled jazz hands actually make me well up sometimes. Just like the picture above!

So, if you've been tasked with a team building plan, entertaining important clients or planning for Bride-zilla then give us a shout, I promise - you won't regret it!

For CORPORATE events, CLICK HERE!

For PRIVATE groups, CLICK HERE!

Words by Nicola Johnston.