Incentive Travel Destination Trends
Domestic Incentive Travel Trends
When choosing a domestic incentive destination, big name places are continually the desired choice for most incentive groups. Perpetual preferences include Hawaii, New York City, Florida, Las Vegas and Arizona. These destinations are enticing as they offer a variety of attractive features ranging from an ample supply of hotel choices, excellent air support, and an exceeding amount of activities. Each of these destinations also has positive name recognition which is exceedingly important to sparking the interest of participants.
Before choosing a destination it is important to do some research. While many consumers consider first-rate big name places an expensive option, this is often a misconception. The high number of hotels and discounted airfare from major competing airlines allows for attractive deals.
However, “off the beaten path” destinations do have their advantages. Depending on the city, hotel and airline rates are often inexpensive. If the chosen hotel/resort’s marketing scheme is specifically geared towards meeting and incentives, the place may be particularly enthralling and even exotic. Although less-known places are harder to attract incentive groups, when chosen they are the perfect opportunity to create one-of-a-kind incentive programs. The trick to this is developing a theme which is specific to the destination as well as the participants. Something participants can relate the destination to, which will create everlasting memories. The unique and distinctive qualities of the destination must be very well represented. Many incentive travel partners specialize in creating such themes, which are destination-specific.
International Incentive Travel Trends
When an international destination is desirable, big names such as Paris, Rome and London arise. Although brilliant locations, they can often be very pricey due to currency issues. More and more incentive groups are choosing to execute programs closer to home. Canada, Mexico and certain areas of the Caribbean have seemingly become more popular in recent years. This is due in part to being more easily accessible than destinations in Europe or Asia.
The itinerary should also be planned to involve a great deal of variety, in order to suit the diverse interests of your group. There should be enough variety to satisfy every particular traveler.
Convenience is a word which needs to be catered to during any incentive program. Transportation is always an issue of convenience. When planning an incentive program, the logistics should be designed in a way which ensures optimum convenience. A back-up plan for getting participants home in the case of an emergency must be put into place prior to the trip. After all, a major component of incentive travel planning is logistics.
Kevin Devanney, President and Founder of Incentive Travel Solutions, believes that clients rely on their travel partners to consistently raise the bar and present destinations that will motivate their sales force. Devanney states, “International destinations always have an appeal to potential attendees. Once an attendee wins a trip to Paris or Vienna, he or she will always strive harder to reach the highest levels of success for future trips around the world. It is imperative that our clients announce destinations that are unique and inspiring year after year.”
Devanney believes clients choose Incentive Travel Solutions for many reasons. However, there is no question that clients stay with Incentive Travel Solutions for many years because of our dedication to memorable incentive itineraries. In a 2005 article, Corporate Travel & Incentives Magazine profiled Incentive Travel Solutions as one of the few “wow factor companies” in the incentive group travel business with our unique approach to planning programs for our clients. ITS created its “wow factor” approach in 2002 as a strategic effort to separate and distinguish us from other travel companies purveying mundane trips that lack creatively unique destinations and/or program itinerary elements. With each of our proposals, the ITS Team creates and highlights each wow event. These are special, once-in-a-lifetime itinerary elements that trip attendees cannot experience on their own. They are distinctively unique and exclusive only to our clients’ group travel programs. These “wows”, as creative travel program enhancements, become a distinct difference between Incentive Travel Solutions and other travel companies in our clients’ perspectives.
