For many, one of the highlights of a group tour in New Zealand is the opportunity to meet people from around the world and make new friends. At Kiwi Travel NZ, we want you to be as comfortable and happy as possible on your tour, whether you’re in a small group or on a larger coach tour.

A great way to get the friendly vibe flowing is to make sure that everyone knows each other’s names with a name game or ice-breaker activity. You could be the one to get the party started by suggesting a fun activity for your group. We’ve created a guide of our favourite ice-breakers and games – why not suggest one of these on your next group tour?

Name games

Name games are a fun way to meet your group and can help you remember all of the new names. Name games are typically started by getting the group to stand in a circle. Here are a few of our favourites!

Alliteration

Alliteration means having the same letter or same sound in front of each word in a sentence. Use this with your name and think of something you are good at or you enjoy doing. For example someone may introduce themselves with “Sam is a super swimmer” or “Becky bakes beautiful bread”.

Throw the ball

Sit or stand in a circle with one person holding a small ball or toy. They begin by throwing the object to another person and saying their name. That person thanks you by name and chooses another person to throw to, saying their name in turn. Continue until everyone has had a go. For an added challenge, try and repeat in the same order as fast as possible or backwards.

Play these games in super hard mode and repeat everyone’s names before yours and have others do the same.

Who’s missing?

One person in the group is blindfolded, and another person is removed and hidden. The blindfolded person then has to identify the missing person by name. If they get it correct, the “missing” person is blindfolded and has to identify someone else. If not correct, the person tries again with someone else missing.

Ice-breakers

Once acquainted, encourage interaction by getting people to work with each other to complete a task or playing a game.

People bingo

Create a sheet of paper with 5-10 squares on it. Each square has a question or statement that participants have to get other players to sign. For example one square may say “my birthday is in June”. Find someone in the group who has a birthday in June and get them to sign the square. The first person to fill all the boxes shouts “bingo!”

Data processing

Set a challenge and get the group to line up in the order of the named challenge. If you want to make it extra difficult, enforce silence or see how quickly it can be done. Challenge examples include:

• Alphabetical by best friend's first name
• Alphabetical according to favourite food
• Length of hair
• Shoe size
• Birthday month
• Numbers in last name
• Length of thumb

Guess who (also called “heads up”)

Choose a category (like farm animals or famous people) and write examples on sticky notes or pieces of paper. Allocate one each but make sure no one knows what is on their piece of paper. Each person then takes turns holding the paper up and asking yes or no answer questions in order to guess who or what they are.

Getting to know them

No doubt after the fun of the previous games everyone will be feeling relaxed and more comfortable with each other. Asking simple, non-intrusive questions is a great way to get to know people further. A fun game is “2 truths and a lie” – people reveal two truths and a lie about themselves and the others have to guess which statement is fake or incorrect. Encourage people to have conversations and get to know each other after the games – you may just come away with not only great memories but great friends.

Try these out on your next group tour! Were these games helpful? Are there any you recommend? Tell us about it in a comment below.

Photo credits:
IMG by Luigi Mengato, CC-BY-2.0

//www.flickr.com/photos/76708317@N02/7109532553" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(51, 122, 183); text-decoration: none;">Modern Languages by The LEAF Project, CC-BY-SA-2.0