Increased creativity and productivity. Improved morale. Employee loyalty and retention. In the context of a travel incentive program, these are but lofty words—that is, unless you effectively measure the success of this program in helping your organization achieve the goals it has set forth at the start.

But how do you exactly measure the success of an incentive travel program? How do you make sure that you get good returns on your investment of time, money and effort? How do you know that this program has created an impact on your organization and its members?

The simplest approach to determining the efficiency of an incentive travel scheme is to look at your bottom line as well as other vital motivational attributes achieved, including revenue increases and the identification of top performers. It is also worthwhile to gain insights on how the program has motivated staff members.

To begin evaluating the success of your company's travel incentive program, you need to review the attributes (revenue increase, enhanced corporate image, employee motivation, loyalty, etc.) against your firm's corporate goals. After that, identify all the goals you have set for the incentive program.

Next, group the attributes into two segments: short- and long-term goals. Under the short-term category, place those goals that can be achieved within a certain period of time.

Then, rate these short-term goals using a scale of one to 10. Typically, primary goals which have a direct impact on the finances of a company rate over eight points while secondary goals have scores ranging between one and seven.

Next, look at the primary short-term goals and then order these according to importance. You also need to state, in real and specific terms, any of the pre-program objectives which you may have made.

After that, you have to calculate the impact of the program by looking at the company goals prior to implementation, and either adding or subtracting the results after implementation. You will need to include the amount of money used for hard objectives or make an estimate for soft objectives.

Finally, compute for the ROI by comparing the financial impact of the program against the total cost. The number you finally arrive at will be the ROI.

After this evaluation, you can now proceed to make an objective evaluation of the success (or failure) of the program. Furthermore, if you are happy with the results, you can use this evaluation as a vital tool to further enhance the incentive program.