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6-Steps To Crafting the Perfect Incentive Travel Event

Whether your company is about to start an incentive travel program or revamping your current one, download the complete incentive travel how-to guide as your roadmap to creating an unforgettable program. The 6-Step Plan to success covered below are necessary pieces of every incentive trip.

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Step 1: Strong Roots

THE WHY:  A tree with strong roots bears fruits. 

If you want a big harvest, you’ve got to have your incentive event firmly planted in rich soil of WHY.  Hurriedly throwing together an incentive travel program because that is what the competition is doing or because a boost to team morale is desperately needed is a fatal mistake.  Without identifying why an incentive program is needed or the precise goals you want the program to accomplish, it will end up being a waste of effort and money.

Ask yourself the following:

  • What would a successful incentive travel program accomplish for our business?  Get specific with outcomes. Determine what will stretch our team but still be attainable.
  • Which 3-4 outcomes are most important for our company?
  • How does the incentive trip match up with other strategic company goals?
  • Are we just trying to increase sales?  What other metrics could be used as part of the incentive program, such as new customers, customer retention, and growth in targeted areas?
  • Can we use incentive program be used to boost morale and recruit new talent?
  • What qualification timeframe will best match our goals and motivate our employees?
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Step 2: Tailor-Made

WHO:  One size doesn’t fit all.

Take the Marketer’s Approach.  Every expert marketer will do one very simple thing before developing a marketing plan.  DETERMINE A TARGET AUDIENCE.  When you take a one-size-fits-all approach, what you have come out on the other side is BLAH.  Roger Stotz, Chief Research Officer of the Incentive Research Foundation, said it best: 

“Probably no aspect of program design has a greater impact on outcomes than understanding the audience.”  

Next, create a “persona” based on an average of your Target Audience by making a list of the following:

Demographics:

  • Gender
  • Age
  • Income
  • Functional role, job titles, and seniority levels
  • Geographical location of employees

Psychographics:

  • Current level of motivation (add a bell curve here)
  • Potential to improve, learn, and sell
  • Extrinsically or intrinsically motivated
  • Attitudes, interests, opinions

Narrowing down your audience this way will help you determine what happens next in Step #3

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Step 3: A Destination with Motivation

WHERE: A dream to work for.

Choosing a destination is the next step and flows naturally from the first exercise.  As you have determined your “persona,” you should be able to narrow down a list of destinations that would be motivating to them. 

USE CAUTION!  Beware of using sites like TripAdvisor, Forbes Travel, and Conde Nast Traveler to solely base your destination decision.  While these sites provide accurate and valuable insight, their information is mostly geared towards individual travelers and not large groups with complex needs.  Not all resorts, hotels, or cruise lines work well with groups, and many lack the mindset to handle your group like a pro.

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Step 4: Get Your Budget Bearings

How Much: A return on investment.

Now that you’ve determined a set of destinations you’d like to consider, it is a MUST to determine everything you want to include and all their associated costs.  Here’s a handy list of items that will affect your budget. 

  • Number of trip qualifiers (and guests)
  • Duration – # of nights
  • Estimated airfare
  • Group transportation
  • Hotel room rates
  • Events, receptions, and gala dinners
  • Décor and entertainment
  • Other meals or meal allowances
  • Number of hosted activities
  • Gifts and giveaways
  • Promotional communications
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Step 5: Break the script

Every incentive travel winner has a running script in their heads of how the program will go: Some pool time, followed by some beach time, followed by a group dinner in the hotel’s dining room, psychedelic hotel ballroom carpet and crystal awards trophies included.  Where’s the fun in that?! This is your chance to break the script and create peak moments. Here are a few ways to accomplish this:

Genuine Experiences

The ongoing corporate vacation script calls for golf, spa, or an easy snorkel adventure–the kind of thing people research and find for themselves on sites like TripAdvisor.  What people are really hoping for are engaging, exclusive, and local experiences they couldn’t duplicate on their own that are unique to the destination–such as private helicopter transfers in Fiji, cocktails, dinner, and bungee jumping off a bridge in New Zealand, and a private, behind-the-scenes Edinburgh Castle visit while kitted out in kilts.  Carefully craft “WOW” into your itinerary.

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Step 6: Hire a Guide & Seasoned Partner

Okay, okay.  Of course, we believe our services are the perfect Step 6!  We offer super valuable expertise and save our clients time and money.  We guide our clients through the entire process of incentive program design, event planning, hotel negotiations, air reservations, guest communication, registration, mobile trip app development, and on-site management. 

Here’s what sets us apart from the rest:

  • DESTINATION EXPERIENCE & KNOW-HOW:  With 3 decades of experience in incentive travel locations around the world, Destinations has seen it, done it and is hungry to innovate and reimagine the tried and true as well as the emerging and new.  We have the time and the know-how to help you pull off an amazing event so you avoid the pitfalls of an unfamiliar location.
  • START-TO-FINISH MANAGEMENT:  As travel pros who do this day in and day out, we can manage hotels, resorts, cruises, transportation, and activities so you can enjoy the location and guests.  AND we can help you do everything more quickly and inexpensively than you thought possible, saving you time, hassle, and precious hours of productivity.   
  • ENDLESS PARTNERSHIPS:  Destinations enjoys decades of global partnerships, industry clout with vendors worldwide, and access to the best pricing and insider info.  With us on your side, our connections become your connections.  Suddenly the insider perks are all yours.  
  • WEBSITES & COMMUNICATION:  We help you create the BUZZ that inspires potential trip winners to achieve by communicating through print, websites, email, apps, and streamlining the winner’s registration process.
  • BUDGET WIZARDS:  Every cent counts on this journey, and Destinations is your all-hands-on-deck team to help you stretch every dollar.  We keep your bean counters  happy with quick, accurate, and timely financial reconciliations. 

Is hiring an incentive travel agency more expensive than doing it alone?

Check out this recent client review:

Having a significant history of coordinating group travel, I initially considered self-managing every detail of our event.  But looking at our action list, I knew we needed the focus of a team of experts.  The last thing I wanted was the time-consuming planning and execution of the event to impact my team’s day-to-day obligations. The Destinations team delivered a lower cost and better experience for our event than we would have been able to coordinate on our own.  That meant we could focus our time and energy on enjoying the location with our customers instead of worrying about logistics.  Partnering with Rick and the entire Destinations team ensured an on-budget, successful, and outstanding experience for our attendees and staff. 

         – Ken Marvel, Senior Business Advisor, AMG Network

Why, Where, What & How Much

Discovering why you are planning this event, what you are trying to accomplish, who your target audience is, where would be most motivating for your group, and how much you would like to spend will lay a strong foundation for any incentive program.  Take it to the next level by breaking the script and planning something unforgettable.

Team up with Destinations

Fill out the contact form below, and we’ll start planning the trip that your team will never forget.

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