The opinion of a spouse has turned out to be an unexpected factor capable of influencing incentive travel decisions.
Speaking at the ASEAN MICE Forum 1 on September 27, Rajeev Kohli, joint managing director, Creative Travel and former president, Society for Incentive Travel Excellence (SITE), shared this cautionary tale: “I lost a project worth US$2 million… because the CEO’s wife wanted to go to Dubai instead, …so if you do a site inspection and have a spouse on site, don’t ignore them.”
Presenting recent research from SITE, Kohli revealed that even for participants, encouragement from a spouse can be a motivating factor.
Other interesting observations include being mindful of the conflicting objectives between corporations and qualifiers, as well as understanding that incentive travel programmes can be utilised to attract and retain younger talent.
For example, leaders may extend incentive travel invites to staff outside of the sales team to be more inclusive, even though the programme is viewed as a travel reward among qualifiers.
“They (management) want to show the sales people how non-sales staff are also important, so this creates a different dynamic in the organisation,” explained Kohli.
He added that incentive travel programmes are useful for motivating the new generation of employees, who are less driven by monetary rewards.
Kohli also reminded the audience of the transformative potential of incentive travel and how it can create circular benefits for companies.
Corporations are now keen to give back to society, so travel incentive professionals should make sure to include corporate social responsibility and sustainable aspects into their programmes.
