The best incentive travel programs create one-of-a-kind experiences that participants could not obtain on their own. Destinations don’t have to be exotic in order to produce unique experiences, says Rhonda Brewer, vice president of sales for Maritz Travel (MaritzTravel.com).
As businesses emerge from the economic collapse of 2008, international travel is returning to incentive programs. “They are going back to the tried and true — Italy, London, Scotland — but they are not doing them in the way they have always done them,” Brewer says. “There are always going to be those places that people want to see, but how do you put a different twist on it? That’s one thing we really talk to people about.”
LaSalle Network CEO Tom Gimbel puts together his own travel plans for his companywide excursion. He is also careful to incorporate some aspects that his employees would be less likely to do on their own. “Repeating the same thing over and over again gets old. A lot of people had been to California, but they hadn’t been to Napa Valley. A lot of people had been to Florida, but they hadn’t gone deep sea fishing, or they hadn’t had a hand-rolled cigar,” he says. “It’s about the experience of things that they haven’t been able to do.”
Companies that don’t provide memorable experiences may suffer the consequences. “We saw an evolution of people staying closer to home after the downturn and frankly, it wasn’t motivating their people,” Brewer says. “They knew they had to do something different.”
LaSalle Network chartered an airplane to take its entire office to South Beach last January after hitting a fourth-quarter goal.
