Complice.ro exceeds EUR 500,000 in turnover in the first half of 2026, up 88%. Companies are spending more on the people they want to keep close.

In a year marked by restructuring and uncertainty on the labour market, more and more companies in Romania no longer see team experiences as an optional benefit, but as a retention tool. This is the main shift that Complice.ro, curator and provider of experiences for companies and individual customers, sees in its data for the first half of 2026. The company recorded a turnover of more than EUR 500,000 in the first half of 2026, up 88% compared with the same period last year.

Corporate: experiences move from rewards to retention and loyalty-building For years, the budget for a team experience sat under the "reward" category: a nice gesture, but an optional one, often among the first to be cut when budgets tightened. Complice.ro's data for the first half of 2026 shows that this logic has changed: more and more companies now treat experiences as a retention tool, both for employees and for partners and clients. The growth in the corporate segment is mainly driven by Complice.ro's existing clients, which have allocated budgets for experiences dedicated to teams and business partners. This evolution contrasts with the general market trend, as most companies in Romania have reduced or reorganised spending in this area: fewer events, shorter formats, smaller numbers of participants, while some companies have temporarily given up such initiatives altogether.

"The situation is the same for everyone: smaller budgets, uncertainty, pressure on any cost that is not strictly critical. The difference lies in how each company reacts to it. Many of our clients are large companies in IT, retail, real estate or financial services, which feel the crisis less and have chosen to work with fewer suppliers, but trusted ones, instead of spreading the budget across several providers. In practice, we have become their partner for this type of decision, beyond being an experience provider. And I see something very concrete: companies that have already included these experiences in their retention strategy do not cut them from the budget at the first sign of pressure, because they know exactly how much it costs to replace a good employee they want to keep close," says Oana Pascu.

At the same time, the type of projects being implemented has also changed. While in previous years most corporate initiatives were one-off projects, linked to an event or a special occasion, in the first half of 2026 companies more often ordered projects integrated into recurring, well-established programmes, rather than isolated events. In practice, the decision to invest in a team experience no longer comes from an events calendar, but from an HR or marketing strategy. An important part of this growth also comes from projects dedicated to top business partners, such as off-road or sailing events in mixed teams, challenge-based routes or themed treasure hunts, as well as private tastings organised abroad for strategic partners. These projects are on a completely different scale from a classic team building, with considerably higher budgets, and they have remained a priority for companies this year as well.