It's a known fact that rewarding employees and sales teams with the opportunity to travel when they achieve targeted goals or numbers is highly effective in motivating them to continue demonstrating excellent performance. Compared to offering cash prizes, giving the promise of a trip to a great destination within the city or country, or even abroad, does a lot more in terms of encouraging employees to push themselves further and contribute more to the company's aim of meeting objectives and successfully attaining business pursuits.
With that said, how would you go about choosing the destinations for your meeting and incentive travel packages? To help you find the right locations, here are some key factors to keep in mind:
Consider Destinations that would Motivate Employees. A survey of 1,000 US-based employees conducted by Maritz Travel in 2013 regarding their perceptions of incentive travel destinations revealed that luxurious trips to sun-and-sand destinations remained their top preferences. The study also showed that participants would not mind the distance of a destination as long as the trip promised a luxurious experience that they would not have been able to arrange for themselves through other means.
As such, highly appealing and well-regarded destinations like Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and tropical islands would prove to be the locations that would drive employees to reach their targets the most.
Keep your Budget in Mind. Of course, you cannot set your sights on a high-cost destination without ensuring that you can safely accommodate it in your incentive travel budget. International destinations will require plane rides, and you'll want to factor in airplane fares when choosing the destination. If the top tier destinations are way too expensive, then pick places that have relatively more affordable plane fares, such as Puerto Rico, Cancun, and the Bahamas, which can still provide an extraordinary travel experience.
How's the Weather? The time of the year and its corresponding weather considerations also influence many companies' selection of incentive travel destinations to offer. As can be expected, trips scheduled in pleasant spring and summer may be more expensive because of their peak travel season status, so see if you can arrange for better travel packages in fall, for example. Your chosen travel dates can help you structure a better trip, with more affordable airfare, better accommodations, or a heftier lineup of activities.
Be aware of Global Concerns. As with any trip abroad, you will need to be careful about ensuring your employees' security, their ability to handle currency issues effectively, and their overall reception in foreign countries. They should be able to be confident in their safety abroad while enjoying and learning from their incentive travel experience.
Organizing incentive packages in this size, with their corresponding complexities, will require much time, effort, planning and coordination, so it's best to hire a meeting and incentive travel planner to take care of this project for you so that you can be sure to provide an incentive program thatyour employees will be looking forward to participating in every year.
"I've been working with Bruce and his team on two projects and they've been great to work with. Bruce has helped us set up a referral/incentive program for us to roll out with our clients and strategic partners. Bruce was great to work with. He's set up a 7 tier program that allows for flexibility and he's also helped us to market the program."
"Beverly arranged and managed the early Envivio Sales incentive trips for us. Each of our events was an outstanding and motivating experience Our Sales team appreciated the attention to detail and to fun. Qualifying for the "trip" was a motivating factor behind many end of year sales pushes. I will use Beverly again in the future."
"Peak Performance’s attention to detail and personal service made me feel like I had a true corporate meeting planning partner that I could rely on throughout the planning process right up until I was on site. I look forward to doing more meetings with them."
"I have used your services two years in a row and you all have made my vacation a great one. You have the most helpful and considerate employees. Always very friendly, respectful and willing to make my travel experience a good one. Thank you and keep up the great job."
