I also think the 5 month cycle between trips could cause a lot of repetitions of falling back into a boredom mode.
Seems more like 1 week together every 8 weeks would be more manageable and logical overall.
Ship captains and oil rig engineers leave their family for 6 weeks or more at a time. There are some people for whom this type of travel is workable, and some for whom it is not. If oil rig engineers can keep families and be away so much, so can programmers.
There's no natural requirement for programmers to leave their home/families (unless they're consulting). I suspect you're not giving your employees "hazard" pay either, are you?
If it were me, I'd want to bring my family along and turn it into a work vacation.
Not to mention, if your employees are in committed relationships you're also subjecting them to a month without sex. I don't know if it's worth $2800/month to have two months a year where your employees are homesick and sexually frustrated.
Given that they have 5 employees in 4 countries scattered across 2 continents, this is a pretty big benefit.
(Speaking of quirky individual preferences: I'm a strict Catholic. Two months, huh. <dry>How ever would I cope.</dry> You can probably find five or ten other people with similar preferences -- it is a big Internet.)
Different strokes for different strokes I suppose. <Insert celibacy joke here.>
I've worked as a consultant for years. It's a job that requires a lot of travel. We don't hide this from prospective hires, and despite having a schedule that's a lot more rigorous than 1 month in 6, and going to places that are a lot less swank than a five-star in Bangkok, we've never had trouble recruiting.
Actually I think there are a lot of people for whom the possibility of traveling twice a year to some semi-exotic locale and having their food/drinks/entertainment comped would be a big draw. As long as you're okay with the demographics that tends to lean towards -- young people, probably fresh college grads -- you might end up finding people willing to work for less, because they'd see the travel as a benefit, than if you were hiring for a cube job.
A lot depends on how you spin it, and what kind of people you try to recruit. It's going to affect the character of the company a lot though.
He'll change his tune pretty quickly, I'm sure, after getting married (from one "strict" Catholic to another).
Dude, they went to Bangkok.
$700 is pretty cheap... Go look at what business-class flights cost on Expedia.
Also: I think this idea is pretty cool. I might side with others that four 2-week trips would be preferable, but traveling like this is definitely something that appeals to me.
However, staying some place for a week vs. a month should cut the hotel bills and food/meal/bar bills by 75%. You reference $200/day for food/bar. Two month-long trips is 60 days of this expense. 6 week-long trips is 42 days of this expense, or an 18 days savings, or a $3600 net savings. Factor that against the $14K increased flight cost and you're adding $10K/year, or $830/month increase. Based on the way you presented the finance details, this still doesn't seem like a big factor, and could potentially remove a lot of stress from employees personal lives if they don't have to be gone for month-long stretches. Of course, if your employees LIKE a big break from their family, then this may not add any value for them :)
Assuming you have decent people and an engaging goal in the company, then these jaunts should really be more about strategizing and prototyping vs. doing "actual" work.
I would consider these more like regular "Demo Days" and brainstorm sessions. My personal bet would be that higher-frequency, shorter duration meetings would allow every one to come together, collaborate, get inspired, and then go off on an 8 week productivity binge. These little trips SHOULD be mini vacations for the team.
The more I think about this, I almost think you're doing it backwards. You'll get 2 months of high-productivity work (the 2 months the team is all together under your plan) and another month of mid-productivity work (the first 2 weeks of the next month after each trip) and then (IMO) a steady taper of productivity back toward zero until the next month-long getaway.
I think these meetings can serve to add momentum to your org. Keeping an object in constant, regular motion is usually more sustainable if the object gets a "shove" at more frequent intervals.