The 2022 IRF Destination Preferences Study paints an optimistic picture for incentive travel as a potent tool for motivating sales teams. In the wake of the pandemic, the allure of incentive trips has never been stronger. The study, which focused on 405 full-time sales professionals in the U.S., conducted between March and April 2022, reveals compelling insights into the evolving landscape of incentive travel.
The findings indicate an overwhelming endorsement of group incentive travel, with a staggering 91% of participants considering it 'extremely' or 'very' motivating. This represents a notable increase from the already substantial 80% reported in the 2021 study. These figures underscore the universal appeal of group incentive travel, with only a marginal 1% expressing indifference.
Furthermore, individual incentive travel emerged as an even more potent motivator, garnering an impressive 96% approval rating, up from 84% in the previous year. The data leaves no room for doubt – both group and individual incentive travel hold a profound sway over sales professionals, with nearly unanimous endorsement.
A positive trend was also observed in perceptions of fairness regarding the award selection process. A significant 85% of respondents felt that the process at their respective companies was either 'extremely' or 'somewhat' fair. This newly included question in the 2022 survey indicates that companies are actively striving to maintain transparency and equity in their incentive programs.
The study delved deeper into what makes an incentive travel truly compelling. Among the attributes assessed, ample relaxation time emerged as the paramount consideration, deemed 'extremely' or 'somewhat' important by an overwhelming 89% of participants. This speaks to the growing recognition of the need for rest and rejuvenation, especially after the stresses induced by the pandemic.
Other crucial factors included the ability to bring a companion, luxury accommodations and experiences, and provision for spending money to cover out-of-pocket expenses. Notably, the opportunity for public recognition in front of peers saw a significant surge in importance from the previous year, indicative of a return to larger group events conducive to peer-wide acknowledgment.
Destination preferences also exhibited intriguing trends. Participants were asked to rank 12 types of experiences in order of preference, revealing that beach/sunshine destinations, adventure travel, and mountains remained the top choices, consistent with the previous year. However, there were noteworthy shifts. Wellness spa visits, which ranked low in 2021, climbed to the fourth position, while cruising, previously at the bottom, witnessed a substantial rise in popularity.
This shift suggests that safety concerns are gradually diminishing, allowing people to feel more at ease in crowded environments. Conversely, visiting smaller cities, primarily English-speaking areas, and wooded/nature areas ranked lower in preference, indicating a preference for more vibrant and bustling locales.
When it comes to the ideal length of an incentive travel, 50% of respondents deemed a trip lasting between 4-6 days as 'ideal', while only 8% preferred a shorter duration of 1-3 days. This preference aligns with the current trend in trip planning, where 23% of trips are scheduled for three days or less.
Finally, in terms of destination choices, Hawaii, the Caribbean, Western U.S., and Western Europe remained at the top, indicating a consistent appeal for these regions. Notably, Mexico made a significant comeback in preference, marking it as the 'biggest riser' among the destinations. However, some regions, particularly in Asia and Africa, ranked lower, reflecting a relative lack of interest.
In summary, the 2022 IRF Destination Preferences Study paints a vivid picture of a resurgent interest in incentive travel among sales professionals. The data showcases a universal appeal for both group and individual incentive travel, coupled with a growing emphasis on fairness in the award selection process. As companies continue to refine their incentive programs, the study provides valuable insights into the evolving preferences and priorities of sales teams.
Contact Incentivetravelgroup.com to start planning your 2024 Incentive trip
Are you looking for some inspiration for your next President's Club or sales incentive destination? Look no further than this list of the top 10 bucket list destinations around the world. These destinations offer a combination of breathtaking natural wonders, historical and cultural landmarks, and upscale amenities that will make your incentive trip unforgettable.
These are just a few of the many bucket list destinations around the world that are perfect for an executive travel incentive or sales incentive trip. Each destination offers its own unique experiences and memories, so start planning your next incentive trip today!
Incentive travel rewards are the best ways to show your leadership team that you appreciate their hard work and dedication to your company's success.
However, many sales teams struggle with how to sell incentive travel programs to their leadership, especially when competing with other companies offering highly competitive perks like merchandise or cash bonuses.
Here are a few tips to help you successfully sell incentive travel to your leadership.
Making your sales reps travel across a country or a continent can be daunting, but it's also an effective way to drive business growth.
If you are considering incentive travel to push your salespeople over that revenue-growth hurdle, there are some things you should know first. What is incentive travel? Who travels on incentive trips? How do I make sure my sales team enjoys their rewards trip instead of dreading it? And how do I keep costs under control? We have answers to all these questions and more.
Let us dive in!
Why do we have incentive travel?
One of our clients once asked us why do we have incentive travel? That's a great question.
We might have a few ideas. The first is that people love rewards and recognition.
Even if you never get on a plane, just thinking about some fun activity—and all those business-related incentives—can be motivating.
When it comes time to sit down and work, your brain is excited by everything that awaits you at your destination.
And as anyone who has done an incentive trip knows, there are plenty of ways to make sure that everyone stays focused while away from home.
But even if there were no such thing as an incentive trip, it would still be essential to recognize top performers with something tangible.
A simple thank-you note can go a long way; so, can lunch with your boss or dinner out with colleagues.
What are our organization's priorities?
It's important to remember that incentive travel is a tool, like all rewards and recognition. If you don't have clear sales goals at your organization, it will be hard to argue why you should invest in an incentive trip or program.
So, before you start selling your ideas internally, make sure your top leadership understands what they want out of an incentive trip—is it better performance? Better business relationships? A more significant share of the wallet?
Have their support behind using incentive travel as a key part of getting there. Then show them how incentives align with those priorities and ask them if they think that might be something they want in their plan. Chances are, they will.
How can incentive travel align with our goals?
To determine whether incentive travel is a good fit, ask yourself how it aligns with your goals. If you're trying to bring a team together and encourage collaboration, incentive travel can be a great way to do that. Are you trying to help leadership become more aware of what's happening on their teams? That's a good reason for incentive travel, too. Does your organization have specific goals tied in with revenue or financial targets? You might find that making corporate-level leaders experience first-hand why hitting those goals is essential could be an effective strategy. The key is to make sure incentive travel complements your overall goals—if not, it may not be worth doing.
How will incentive travel benefit my business area?
Whether you're trying to grow sales or improve customer retention, incentive travel can drive positive change.
This is especially true if your business area has never used incentives before. Remember that it's in your company's best interest to sell your leadership on incentive travel.
It would help if you had their support—and, ultimately, their money—to pull off a successful event. Before approaching them with an incentive trip idea, explain how incentives benefit your business area and why it's worth investing in it now.
For example, say you have an underperforming sales team that makes up 20 percent of total revenue—incentives could be an excellent way to boost those numbers without spending much money.
Use these ideas as inspiration to help your leadership understand incentive travel benefits:
Understanding and Assessing Risk Section
The first thing you have to understand about incentive travel is that it's a significant expense, but it can reap huge rewards if executed correctly.
Assess your company's risk tolerance before making any decisions. Some companies don't allow incentive travel; others take advantage of it, implementing tighter controls on spending and documentation.
If your company doesn't enable incentive travel, keep an eye out: Policies change over time, and they may loosen up to keep employees engaged and committed.
If there's resistance from management, suggest an experimental project with a small number of employees first.
This will allow everyone involved to see how incentive travel impacts performance without risking too much money or too many resources.
It also gives you time to get feedback from participants to make changes ahead of larger projects. And remember: Everyone has their own opinion on incentive travel—but only yours matters when trying to sell them!
Be prepared with data and statistics showing why incentive travel helps productivity, retention rates, and other essential business metrics. Even better?
Show them how their employees feel about incentive trips—many managers are surprised by how much positive feedback they receive after sending their teams away for work!
Just like the name suggests, a President's Club refers to one of the highest levels of ranks one can receive.
This achievement showcases the top-most salespeople in a particular organization.
The concept for President's Club, aka Achiever's Club or Winner's Circle, is not a new one. It was introduced to motivate the top-performing representatives and has spread out to the entire corporate world.
When the stakes are worthwhile to be administered into the Club, it can propel high performing and highly compensated representatives and allow them to go even further than their average performances.
Moreover, when these stakes are utilized well, they can significantly impact the organization's overall performance, providing all the representations, not just the high-performing ones, and an objective to achieve.
The question then arises: When and why should a President's Club be introduced? Well,
A short answer is that it depends on the company's environment and how much focus you want to place on the betterment of the sales team.
However, it is best not to introduce one unless the company has a sales team of at least 30 employees.
Developing a President's Club program for the sales teams will allow you to recognize the achievements of your employees, cultivate a healthy environment in your organization and establish a long-lasting tradition.
If this is your first time creating a President's Club Sales Incentive Program, here are the step-by-step instructions you should follow to develop and execute a program:
These programs are not one-size-fits-all; thus, specific ones are implemented to achieve any number of different goals: motivating the under-performing personnel, subjugating a more significant share of the market, and accelerating sales of particular products.
Such programs are beneficial. They
President's Club can motivate your high-achieving employees by recognizing them as such. They are your earning points, so buying a car or a new TV probably isn't enough to satisfy them. That is why an exciting incentive travel experience is most commonly used.
A President's club travel program does not create an elite crowd of unreachable performers if set up correctly. On the contrary, it encourages every employee to give their best output and perform even better.
In today's date, many organizations employ incentive travel programs because these programs motivate the employees and increase their productivity. In fact, according to research by the Incentive Travel Council and Site International Foundation, 96% of employees express travel incentives motivate them. Travel incentives motivate your employees to help achieve business objectives by increasing productivity, enhancing performance, increasing sales, and achieving targets. Moreover, these corporate incentives provide numerous other benefits as well. Generally, companies use travel incentives to motivate their sales force to achieve sales targets.
Let's look into this blog; we will discuss the significance of travel incentive and how it provides ROI for your organization.
Travel incentive is used to support and appreciate the employees. According to the studies, it is one of the significant incentives to motivate staff and increase their productivity to achieve objectives. Giving employees incentive trip work as a motivation for them. It gives the satisfaction to staff that their efforts are appreciated by their organization. Research conducted on 200,000 people, including employees and managers, showed that regarding the question "My company values high performance," the companies that achieve the lowest 25% return on investment of 2.4. However, those in the top 25% had an average return on investment three times high. It shows that the organizations that invest in incentive travel reach higher productivity.
In the United States, businesses suffer the loss of an estimated $11 billion yearly due to staff turnover, according to the stats. 79% of employees who resigned from their jobs mention that "lack of appreciation" is a primary reason for quitting. According to research, travel incentive programs can help to prevent employee turnover. Society for Human Resources Management has revealed in their report that the organizations with recognition programs such as travel incentives have played effectively in retention, engagement, and performance (SHRM/Globoforce, 2012). Furthermore, if employees feel that their company is giving them value and rewards, that will lead to workplace satisfaction. So, it will be a wise decision to invest in travel incentives to appreciate your staff and retain professional employees.
When staff sees that their organization respects and recognizes their efforts, they feel more motivated and become more loyal to the company. Moreover, 72% of staff awarded with travel incentives state they feel more loyal to their organization. In their study, Site International Foundation and the Incentive Travel Council revealed that loyal staff are like ambassadors for your company and will work efficiently to make sure that the organization achieves its objectives.
Travel incentive plays a vital role in relieving the stress of employees. Employees that receive travel incentives feel reduced stress, increased productivity, and more confidence. It will benefit the employees and your organization because your staff will return to work feeling motivated. Moreover, employees will work more efficiently and fulfill their tasks with higher productivity.
When employees go for an incentive trip in a group, it gives an excellent opportunity for teamwork and friendship. During their trip, employees will spend some quality time and memorable experiences together, providing them the opportunity to know each other. After the trip, the employees will have a stronger bond when they start their job responsibilities. Moreover, it will improve the workplace environment, and employees prefer to work as a team. Furthermore, a positive work environment also helps in retaining employees.
In a survey, on a scale of 1 to 10, managers rate the significance of a positive work environment at 8.5. Since the covid-19 pandemic, organizations are now allowing employees to work remotely. Travel incentive gives a chance for employees to meet up with their office colleagues that will help in team-building and bonding.
We have discussed how beneficial it is to provide travel incentives. It can help boost your employees' confidence, increase productivity, and help achieve business objectives. Furthermore, it can also help your organization set productivity standards and adjust strategy according to your business goal. For example, if John achieves the sales target by selling 20 items in a month and Watson only sold 12, John will be eligible for the travel incentive reward. However, now management knows that selling 20 items is an achievable sales target for a month, so it is better to identify John's best strategies and help Watson overcome his weaknesses.
Businesses have to compete with other market players in this challenging work environment. Therefore, it is essential to retain talented employees and increase sales and revenue. Therefore, travel incentive is highly beneficial for companies and worth to invest. Furthermore, travel incentives help you achieve your business objectives and give you a higher return on investment. Moreover, it will motivate employees to boost their confidence and retain skilled staff.
Organizations should make every attempt to retain capable employees and hire those who are proficient in their field as well. Promote a workplace culture that cares for the well-being of staff, and you will see your business flourishing. Moreover, it helps in competing with business rivals with more effective results. Furthermore, nobody wants to leave an organization that appreciates the efforts of its employees. Likewise, everyone wants to join a company that provides incentives to their employees and recognizes their efforts.
Travel Incentive Plans
We are offering travel incentive planning services. From the initial stages to the plan's implementation, we will guide you in every step to implement your desired travel incentive plan. Our travel incentive plans will motivate, engage, and uplift your employees' confidence and boost return on investment for your organization.
Our incentive trips will thrill, engage and inspire your employees and boost long-term ROI for your company. So get our help and opt for the customized incentive plan according to your employees.
We aim to provide the best travel incentive plans designed for the organizations. Contact us today or visit our website incentivetravelgroup.com to learn more about travel incentive programs.
In a world that is growing increasingly unstable due to terrorism and civil unrest, many people don’t feel as confident about traveling as they once did.
But there are some key actions employers can take to help their road warriors feel more at ease while they’re out there.
Let’s look at 5 ways to keep employees safe while traveling.
Everyone’s afraid of things they don’t understand or know about. That’s why providing your traveling employees with information about the destination and conditions is the best travel policy practice.
A fact sheet, providing key information like what to expect from the climate, the city, and even the neighborhood your traveling employee is headed for, reduces the mystery and ups the interest. Include a list of local services, restaurants, and public transit.
Tailor the information you provide to your individual travelers. Some may have medical conditions or require medication. Ensure that you include information about medical services and pharmacies for these travelers.
Being aware of factors like this will help you meet your duty of care for the specific employee traveling.
If your business doesn’t have travel insurance coverage, it’s time to get that sorted.
If you already have this in place, then it’s incumbent on you to communicate information about this insurance to travelers before they embark on their trip.
Are there health requirements your traveler needs to know about before taking off? Do they need inoculations? Should they not be drinking tap water? Is it OK to eat street food?
You’re the employer, so it’s your job to make your traveling employees aware of these factors before they go.
Nobody really wants to think about it, but responsible employers do.
If your employees are traveling to a destination in the throes of change, including intermittent civil unrest, then having an emergency plan in place which includes communication and evacuation is a best practice.
Being equipped with secure, reliable communication in this instance is key to an emergency plan being effective, so ensure that’s the case.
PRO-TIP: When your road warriors are entering “hot zones” or visiting destinations with a reputation for unrest, then enrolling with the US Embassy should be a matter of protocol. This ensures that the person is accounted for should instability arise.
Are you concerned about existing protocols at your company for keeping your employees safe while traveling? Let ITG take the reins and develop your corporate travel policy to encompass traveler safety.
With over 20 years in the business, we bring you wide-ranging experience in incentive travel programming, rewards, meeting and conference planning and so much more. We’re the experts who raise the bar, making your travel program the one to replicate.
Ready for an outsourced solution to all your corporate travel needs? Then, you’re ready for the pros at ITG. Contact us to discuss these 5 ways to keep employees safe while traveling. Discover excellence with the team at ITG.
Employee motivation should be your most important goal to sucess. You’ve got a full roster of employees. But do you know who’s doing the heavy lifting?
Not all of them! That’s a sure thing.
It’s tough to keep your staff engaged every minute or every day. Tough. Not impossible. What you need to do to keep all of them as connected as possible to the goal they’re collectively reaching for, is to enhance their motivational instinct.
And that instinct is, primarily, self-interest.
Employee motivation – a veritable gold mine of increased profits – is elusive at times. But with the right strategy, you can get your employees engaged and keep them that way.
Employers can no longer count on fallbacks like pay increases, bonuses and benefits enhancement. Employees don’t get a thrill from those. If you’re a quality employer, your employees are already deriving the monetary benefit of that quality.
It’s no good to tell them they’ll keep their jobs if they perform to expectations. When you’re trying to grow, “doing the minimum” isn’t going to cut it. And this employment market belongs to employees. Their mobility has never been better, especially if they’re highly skilled.
It’s not like they don’t know their value. They’ll head for greener pastures if they’re not getting what they need from your company.
Motivation is speaking to employee self-interest in a more compelling way. That “more compelling way” means putting something on the table to sets off employee pleasure centers.
Travel, for example. Tying your company goals to the dreams and desires of your employees is a proven way to extract from them the kind of top performance and productivity you’re looking for.
The idea of coming out on top and winning an incentive gets the juices flowing, the healthy competition going and motivation sparking.
Employee motivation, when expressly included in company culture as one of its pillars, is an effective model for growing your company by engaging and thus, retaining your star people.
That’s how incentive programs work. When woven into a strong company culture, they send a message of rewards for the kind of work that reaches a little further than what’s expected. When that culture embraces all effort that contributes to growth and success, it becomes a buoyant reality that raises the level of employee engagement and stems turnover.
A quality incentive program which taps into the dreams and desires of employees is where your gold mine of increased profits begins. With exceptional ROIs which leave monetary incentives and rewards in the dust, travel incentives serve to hit employees where they live – offering them something extraordinary in return for their best effort.
With more than 2 decades creating quality incentives and incentive programming for companies like yours, Incentive Travel Group is your outsourced solution to unlocking employee motivation.
We help take your operation to the next level without burying your existing human resources. Instead, we’re an extension of what you’ve got on board, bringing you a professional incentive solution.
Ready to go for gold? Contact us.
With US unemployment low and top-performing employees highly mobile due to this factor, employers need all the help they can get when strategizing around retention. All the tools in your toolbox are needed in a climate like this, so this post is about the many ways travel incentives make employees produce better results.
Employees who produce better results are icons, representing the success of your corporate culture. They’re also the people most likely to stick around when they’re treated well.
Let’s look at how travel incentives can improve motivation, inspiration, and results.
Everyone loves a trip to a place they’ve never been. And when that trip is a travel incentive offered to your employees for a job well done, or for having returned the top sales figures, it’s highly desired.
A trip as a reward creates a vacation that the employer pays for, recognizing the successful employee’s efforts toward obtaining it. Who doesn’t want that?
Having a travel incentive program in place, allows HR professionals to point to the program as a benefit, attracting great talent. And word gets out about companies with cultures that encourage high-performing employees this way.
Those are companies that highly skilled, rock star employees want to work for.
Once you’ve got them through the front door, there’s nothing like travel incentives to inspire loyalty. That’s especially true when you’ve tailored your program to the desires of employees.
Feeling respected and valued, employees who benefit from travel incentives are more likely to stay. They’ll be nourished by an enhanced feeling of connection to the organization they work for when they sense that you notice what they bring to the party.
And there’s no question that employee loyalty puts a dent in turnover and the high costs associated with it, both fiscally and in terms of morale.
There’s no question that a healthy workforce out-performs an unhealthy one. Burnout and stress can both be mitigated with a well-deployed and carefully crafted travel incentives program.
Stress has physical consequences for human beings. When you’re able to provide your employees with a “thank you” in the form of an all-expenses-paid trip, you’re giving them the gift of time away from what’s stressing them and burning them out.
Your business reduces absenteeism and healthcare costs associated with sickness caused by stress (illnesses like heart disease, for starters).
Rear ends in seats don’t mean much if those rear ends aren’t producing.
Travel incentives inspire employees to reach a little higher. The time they spend out of the office serves to reinvigorate their efforts, helping them to refocus and return better results, via boosted productivity.
These are just some of the ways travel incentives make employees produce better results. Those results are the ROI you want for your travel incentive dollar. Increased productivity, reduced turnover, and enhanced motivation and loyalty are all factors that mean a healthy, robust workplace that gets your business where you need it to be.
Contact Incentive Travel Group for more information.
If your enterprise is situated in the retail sector, you’ll be aware that almost all your employees (95%) are paid hourly. What’s more, your workforce is diverse, employing people from many different demographics, from high school students to seniors supplementing their pension incomes. So, how do you make everybody happy? How do you inspire your workers with incentive programs for the hourly workforce?
Here are some basic guidelines.
Your best bet with lower cost incentives is to include everyone. Even if you’re a Main Street mom and pop store, you can invite your employees to celebrate a great month by hosting a pizza party, or providing them with gift cards, as a way of thanking them.
A monthly birthday celebration for all employees having a birthday in the same month is another good way to show your appreciation.
Considerate gestures like providing snacks and coffee in the break room is another winning strategy. Instead of giving them one small break at noon, give them a little more time and some great snacks. Instead of going out to buy a bite, they can relax on-site and feel catered to by their employer.
Plan events that will interest your staff. Invite a speaker to talk about the finer points of customer service or display strategies that boost sales at the point of purchase.
Plan meals out together, “just because”. These can be tied to a seasonal event, or just be a picnic in a local park with games for employee families, burgers, and hot dogs. It doesn’t need to be fancy to build team spirit and loyalty.
Get your employees involved in your sponsorship efforts. Give them discounted tickets to local events like hockey games and new film releases. Little gifts like this encourage your employees and show them that you’re thinking of them.
If you can manage this one, bonuses and other fiscal perks never go out of style. Just remember - be fair. Include your entire staff and base your incentives on goals that aren’t too far out or unattainable. And tie those goals to company growth, so they have a purpose that is easily discernable.
To be avoided: favoritism. That’s actionable under the law and awarding bonuses and other money-based rewards this way can land you in hot water.
Base bonuses on yearly, average salary, or choose things like years of service to award bonuses, or sales figures for the year. Also, time off with pay is a highly prized incentive your employees will love you for.
Incentive programs for the hourly workforce don’t need to be unduly complicated. They just need to do their job. Think carefully about who your employees are. A best practice in this regard is to survey them to find out what they’d like to see.
Incentive Travel Group is your source for all kinds of incentive and rewards programs. For over 20 years, we’ve been raising the bar in the sector. Contact us to get the incentives edge.
