Incentive travel trends in a post pandemic world

The workplace is experiencing one of the biggest transformations ever seen, and with the 'Great Reshuffle' still ongoing, employers are looking for new ways to attract and retain talent.

Reward and recognition programmes are now more important than ever. Companies are investing more in incentives – the Incentive Research Foundation (IRF) 2022 Trends Report predicted overall incentive budgets would increase by 34 per cent this year – with many reviewing their activity to ensure they motivate an increasingly dispersed and hybrid workforce.

Incentive travel remains a top motivator, but alongside traditional large group incentive trips, there is a growing demand for smaller group and individual travel experiences post pandemic.

“Since Covid, many people are more precious about their time. They don’t necessarily want to fly for 10 hours to spend four nights with people from work. They would rather choose where they go and who they go with,” says Laura Cook, client development director at Neon Agency.

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Reward through experience

Recognising this shift, hotel groups have begun launching programmes designed to help clients reward incentive winners with individual luxury travel experiences. According to Andrew Rae, founder of Another Way, which specialises in promotions, prize management and sales incentives, new offerings such as Rocco Forte’s Reward Experiences programme are well-timed.

“We are seeing less demand for large group trips that take 200 people away to an amazing destination for 3-4 nights. The clients we are working with now want to engage their employees on a deeper level, prolong activations and create a greater impact over a longer period,” he explains.

“Instead of one-off annual group trip, giving your top sales performers the opportunity to take a partner, friend or family, away for an amazing experience at a luxury hotel at a time that suits them will not only create a huge amount of goodwill towards your company, but can also engage more people throughout the year,” he adds.

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Generational preferences

US-based hospitality and travel veteran Pam Kressley, who has held top positions at Disney Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean International, says the demand for individual incentive travel experiences was already a growing trend pre-pandemic, driven by the younger generations of travellers who want to travel where, when and with whom they want, vs. travelling with their co-workers in a group setting.

She believes the pandemic further fuelled this demand because many employers offered travel gift cards, hotel stays and other individual travel experiences as alternative rewards when group travel was restricted. Kressley has teamed up with former colleague Lory Cassidy to launch Gift A Trip, a 'one-stop-shop' for both corporate buyers and consumers to source, purchase and deliver turnkey individual travel certificates from the biggest resort and cruise brands.

“Our first phase has been to get popular products such as the Caribbean and Mexico, all-inclusive resorts, and cruises, on board. There is also demand for more bespoke luxury products, and we are working with Rocco Forte to incorporate their Reward Experiences vouchers into our platform,” says Kressley. “Individual travel experiences in the corporate incentive market are here to stay and we believe that if participants are given a choice, most would prefer an individual trip.”

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Taking personalisation to the next level

Personalisation in incentive programmes has been a growing trend over the past few years, as an increased desire among incentive winners for a more tailored experience led to a rise in flexible group itineraries that offer more free time or activity choices. Giving your employees a choice over whether they would prefer an individual travel experience to a group trip essentially takes that personalisation to the next level.

Offering choice when it comes to reward and recognition signals to employees that you understand their preferences and shows that you care about them. Caroline Lumgair Wiseman, managing director of Eventful, which developed its own luxury individual travel experiences offer during the pandemic, says: “One positive about the pandemic is that the resulting evolution of workplace culture has given employees a voice to be honest about their reward preferences and employers an opportunity and encouragement to research what truly motivates their workforce.”

She continues: “Several corporate clients have now conducted companywide surveys and they’ve shared the insightful results with us, which suggest that if given a choice, some employees would prefer alternative rewards to the annual group incentive trip, including financial rewards, shopping and travel vouchers, and family or personal trips.”

Research certainly seems to suggest that individual travel experiences are an effective way to keep employees motivated. The 2021 Destination White Paper by the IRF, reported that 84 per cent of participants considered individual incentive travel as “very or extremely motivating.”

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Group trips are here to stay

So, what does this mean for group incentive trips? While individual travel rewards share many of the same benefits as a group trip – the excitement generated during the qualifying period, the storytelling afterward, lifelong memories, and ultimately shifting the culture of performance in a positive direction – they lack the networking and relationship-building element that group trips offer.

For this reason, incentive planners believe the group trip will always have a place, particularly for certain sectors and companies. “It all depends on the objectives of the programme. If our client’s objective is to spend quality time with their top performers or core customers, then you can’t beat a group experience,” says Liana Lax, marketing director at XSEM.

For those businesses that do want to keep the annual group incentive, individual travel experiences can be a great addition to company-wide reward and recognition points programmes that allow employees to collect points to spend on rewards such as gadgets, shopping and experience vouchers.

Charla Forinton, director of global sales – groups at Rocco Forte Hotels, says: “We’re not trying to replace group incentive trips. We are recognising that clients want choice and offering that with this new programme.”

Another Way’s Rae adds: “People now have much more choice over where they work from and the hours they work, and they want to be given the same choice when it comes to how they are rewarded. Incentives aren’t one size fits all. We are all motivated by different things, and if someone is being rewarded for their hard work, it makes sense that that they choose what that reward is.”