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Mountains & Mozart – Splendor in Banff, Canada

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It is the goal of everyone at Incentive Travel Solutions to exceed expectations.  Our destination partners are very important to our success and we welcome their suggestions, experience and local relationships. However, even the best destination suppliers can get into a habit of presenting the same concepts over and over. Therefore, we take pride in custom designing every function, tour and group activity that we present our clients.

In 2014, Incentive Travel Solutions had the honor of creating a client incentive trip for their 180 winners and guests to Banff, Canada. During a site visit, we toured a local ranch that could be used for horseback riding during the day or host groups for a traditional western style dinner show in the evening. The venue was fantastic and the setting was beautiful. However, the Incentive Travel Solutions Team was looking for a real wow, something that the guests would remember for a lifetime.

In speaking with one of the ranch hands, he mentioned a field atop the mountain that he would take the horses to run. He offered to show us the location. There was only one way to visit the area, so the ITS Team mounted horses and began the journey. Upon arriving, it was clear that the scenery from this mile-high location was unique. The 360-degree view across the Canadian Rockies was spectacular. The field however, was a bit raw and would require quite a bit of grooming. The ranch hand was proud of his secret location and was anxious to help us in any way.

So the day arrived.  This was to be a signature event and everyone at the ranch was excited to witness the occasion first hand.  The client’s winners and guests arrived and were greeted by the ranchers and local artisans.   Outfitted in western attire, the group traveled by horses and wagons. Accompanied by cowboys, and a riding western trio, the group blazed a trail into the mountains.  Soon, the group entered the clearing atop the mountain. The setting was breathtaking. Before their eyes, was the amazing view of the Canadian Rockies. At the end of the summit was a marquee tent adorned with summer flower centerpieces, crystal stemware, and servers in black tuxedos to greet the group. Outside the tent, an orchestra performed tunes from the Sound of Music. The client, his top performers and their guests were speechless. They were wow’ed that all of this was created just for them. White and red wine was being poured and the first ever white glove western bar-b que was underway.

An incentive trip must be memorable and inspiring.  Taking something ordinary and turning it into a once in a lifetime memory is what the team at Incentive Travel Solutions challenges themselves with each and every day. Contact Us today to get started.

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Work & Fun: How Can a CEO Deliver This Winning Combination?

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From permitting beer drinking in the workplace to allowing employees to work from home, employee-friendly CEOs have tried about everything to make work feel less like work and more like fun. While most employees are gracious enough to accept whatever concessions a CEO throws their way, the fact remains: Some types of rewards are more effective than others at combining work and fun in a manner in which the latter doesn’t detract from the former.

Incentive-Based Trips Are a Great Option
Incentive-based trips are exactly what they sound like: travel opportunities that employees receive when they meet the requirements to receive them. At most companies, incentive-based trips are based on financial objectives. For example, a CEO might offer an incentive-based golf trip to his or her sales team if they exceed last year’s sales goals by 20 percent, or offer the same trip to members of management if they reduce annual operating costs by a similar margin.

Unlike wacky types of fun that could decrease business productivity, such as permitting drinking in the workplace, offering employees an incentive-based trip makes perfect sense from a business perspective, both for employees and the company for which they work. If you are a CEO who is looking for a way to deliver a winning combination of work and fun that improves workplace morale, below are four important reasons to consider offering an incentive-based trip.

 

  1. The Reward is Tangible

As a reward for hard work, there is nothing subjective about an incentive-based trip. Employees know that, if they meet the stated goal, they will be golfing in Ireland, snorkeling in Key West, soaking up spa treatments in Malibu, or enjoying a similarly fun type of trip. As they work toward the goal, they can continually envision the reward to help them stay motivated to succeed.

  1. Employees Know What to Expect

Employees at thriving companies know they’ll receive raises and bonuses for working hard. However, exactly what those raises and bonuses amount to is often unknown, until employees see it at year’s end on paper. An incentive-based trip doesn’t involve any guesswork. Employees know what they will receive, which can make them more motivated to receive it.

  1. Encourages Business Productivity

One of the problems of combining work activities and fun activities in the same environment is that the spirit of fun can usurp the commitment to productivity. Often, it is a better idea to make “fun” a reward for hard work instead of combining fun activities with work processes. Ultimately, the goal is to boost productivity in a capacity that increases the bottom line. Making an incentive-based trip the light at the end of the yearly work tunnel helps promote productivity.

  1. Can be Highly Cost Effective

Incentive-based trips can be a cost effective way to reward employees. For example, say you have a sales team of 25 people that would receive raises and bonuses totaling $1 million at year’s end based on their current performance. Now, imagine offering a group trip that would cost $250,000 and reducing raises and bonuses by a total of $350,000. That’s an easy way to add six figures to your company’s bottom line by using a trip as a performance-based reward.

Contact Us Today
If you are a CEO who would like to add more fun to the work environment, offering employees an incentive-based trip is a good option for the reasons above. However, to make the trip a success, you may need some assistance from a professional facilitator of incentive-based trips. If so, the experienced specialists at Incentive Travel Solutions are here to help.

We have assisted many businesses and organizations with planning captivating trips to desirable destinations worldwide. From helping you choose a destination, to negotiating the best travel prices, to handling web-based registration processes, we can facilitate almost any aspect of an incentive-based trip. Simply put, we handle the legwork while you focus on business.

For more information about our services, call us today at (704) 540-1482, or fill out our contact form. We look forward to helping you plan an amazing trip to remember!

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A Simple Idea Every CEO Should Consider to Boost Sales

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Experienced CEOs know that business productivity is inevitably tied to how well employees are compensated, especially when it comes to sales. Companies naturally seek out the best talent for their sales teams, but having all the talent in the world means nothing unless you can motivate it to perform at the highest level. One way that CEOs can inspire their carefully selected sales teams to increase productivity and boost sales is offering an incentive-based trip.

Incentive-Based Trips: What Are They?
Incentive-based trips are rewards that thriving companies offer to employees who meet or exceed a preset business goal. In sales, the goal may involve such things as nurturing a certain percentage of leads into clients, retaining a certain percentage of existing customers, and exceeding last year’s revenue goal by a certain percentage. The business goal is yours to choose, and so is the type of trip that employees take after they achieve the goal.

A Unique Look at Cost Effectiveness
At first glance, an incentive-based trip can seem like an expensive way to motivate and reward sales professionals. After all, the trips often involve a high level of novelty and luxury in terms of destination, planned activities, and lodging. However, it is the novelty of the trips that can make them a cost effective way to deliver a meaningful, performance-based reward to employees.

For example, for many people, the novelty of playing golf on a beautiful, seaside course in Ireland is worth far more in experiential value than it is in monetary value. For the trip’s provider, this phenomenon can create a great amount of financial flexibility when planning the trip, especially when the provider works with a professional trip planner to secure the best prices.

Facilitating an Incentive-Based Trip
Because they often involve multiple travelers, incentive-based trips can present logistical and financial obstacles that the average vacation would not, such as airline contract negotiations, hotel contract negotiations, and web registration processes. The good news is that a professional planner of incentive based trips, such as Incentive Travel Solutions can help you move past these obstacles with ease. You can focus on work while we solidify your travel plans.

Contact Us Today
As long as they have established the performance-based goal that triggers the reward, it is never too early for CEOs to start planning an incentive-based trip for their sales team. The more time that we have to make arrangements for your travels, the more flexibility we have to get you the best possible prices for traveling to your destination, inhabiting it in style, and having a fabulous time enjoying fun filled, leisurely activities while you are there.

To get started on planning an incentive-based trip for your company’s hard working sales team, call Incentive Travel Solutions today at (704) 540-1482, or fill out our contact form. We look forward to helping you create a trip that your sales team will remember forever and work hard to qualify for in the meantime by boosting sales numbers to new heights!

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Finding the best Employee Travel Reward Program

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Arenal Volcano and Lake Arenal in Costa Rica

Arenal Volcano and Lake Arenal in Costa Rica

Finding the best employee travel incentive program will depend on what kind of experience a business owner or company executive wants the employees who are awarded incentive travel to have. One of the most outlying factors is the type of location that is chosen: a tropical destination where employees and hang out and relax on beaches, or a mountainous location where skiing and chilling out in fabulous ski lodges and resorts is the favored norm. When most people hear the word “exotic,” they think of tropical islands in exclusive locales where only the wealthiest and most affluent congregate. In reality, almost everyone has a different definition of the word “exotic,” because it is subjective. In other words, one person might think a tropical island is exotic, while another might consider a mountainous terrain covered in snow as exotic. Finding the best employee travel incentive program relies on the evaluation of the business owner, or the company executive(s) determined responsible for compiling the program and bestowing the reward to employees. Therefore, if a business is having trouble choosing the most popular incentive travel program for its employees, it can gather the overall opinion of its employees through a companywide survey. Another option would be to consult with an incentive travel solutions company that can provide an abundance of information on specific locations. If a company decides to act on both ideas, then it would have a good idea of the kind of location that is more preferable, and then the business can consult with an incentive travel company that can provide information on the locations that fit the desired type of destination.

Probably the best solution to finding the best employee travel incentive program is through consultation with a travel solutions provider, such as Incentive Travel Solutions. Incentive Travel Solutions offers businesses that are seeking incentive travel programs for its employees a wealth of knowledge on many different types of destinations, which will no doubt help a company make a definitive decision on where to send its employees. At the very least, once the consultation process is complete, the company’s decision maker will be able to confidently choose a location for its employees to travel, and, no matter the destination offered, the decision maker can share with its employees what to expect and what can be enjoyed while traveling through the area. With this information provided by Incentive Travel Solutions, a business is guaranteeing the likelihood that all of its employees with enjoy a marvelous experience during their employee incentive trip.

Consulting with a representative from Incentive Travel Solutions will help eliminate the potential waffling and wavering that happens when trying to select the most desirable incentive travel location, which usually stems from not having enough information on the locations. Information can be made available for the locations your company is weighing, which will help your business pinpoint the best employee travel incentive program.

 

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Latest Attraction for London Travel: Queen Elizabeth’s Olympic Park

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travelJust when you thought there wasn’t another reason to visit London, England. Most travelers tout London as one of the most delightful cities to travel to anywhere in the world because of its fanciful landscape, tourist attractions, buildings and city structures, and its unbelievable landmarks. The latest attraction for London travel involves the destination to Queen Elizabeth’s Olympic Park, where the 2012 Summer Olympics took place. The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park has just recently reopened, to much fanfare. Now, the world class sporting venue has several more centers open, including an Aquatics Center, the Lee Valley VeloPark, and more than five hundred acres of newly landscaped parkland. In addition, many more walking trails have opened, along with the ArcelorMittal Orbit – a wonderful viewing platform that overlooks the park.

People who enjoy spending most of their vacations outdoors inn locations that offer numerous different types of activities in which to participate will absolutely fall in love with Queen Elizabeth’s Olympic Park – the latest attraction for London travel. It is strongly recommended that companies and people who often associate themselves and their business with outdoor venues and associations to look into this most excellent feature destination, which not only offers one of the most magnificent parks the world has ever seen, it also puts you in the epicenter of world-class city destinations. Having an all expense paid vacation to a marvelous park, which had everybody glued to their television set due to its wondrous appeal during the 2012 Summer Olympics, located in one of the most fantastic cities in all the world will enchant even the most well traveled tourist. Moreover, the vacation destination will certainly make for a lifetime of memories and joy on which to reminisce – until you go back again.

Incentive Travel Solutions offers the best deal and travel guide for visiting Queen Elizabeth’s Olympic Park, considered one of the best and latest attractions for London travel. If this wonderful incentive opportunity seems like an incredible deal, then you should reach out to Incentive Travel Solutions, so you can learn more about traveling to this latest London travel attraction. An Incentive Travel Solutions representative will be happy to answer any of your questions, as well as go more in depth regarding how the travel packages work.

You saw it on television, and were no doubt amazed by its grandiosity. Today, you can experience Queen Elizabeth’s Olympic Park up close and personal through Incentive Travel Solutions.