As the pandemic shrinks in our rearview mirror, most North American companies have resumed their incentive travel activities, with a renewed focus on gaining benefits like driving recruitment, increasing employee engagement, retaining top talent, building partner relationships, and improving company culture.
But what exactly are travel incentives, and why are they seen as invaluable tools for business growth and employee development? Keep reading for a brief overview and then stayed tuned for our upcoming 3-Part Series that provides more in-depth details and gets you fully prepared to incorporate travel incentives into your business strategy for 2024.
What are travel incentives?
In a post-COVID world, travel incentives are gaining back their popularity as an attractive way to reunite disconnected business partnerships, and build relationships in person rather than through a screen. Luxury travel opportunities offer immense competitive power to stay attractive to your clients, partners, and sales prospects — altogether supporting your business.
Travel incentives are also one of the ways organizations reward, engage, and retain talent. Whether it’s a company-paid trip to an island resort or a digital gift card to cover flights on their next vacation. The goal of these incentives is to encourage connections, engagement, and performance with rewards that delight your employees, partners, and senior management.
An Incentive Research Foundation (IRF) study reported that group travel incentives are “very” or “extremely” motivating according to 80% of respondents, and individual travel rewards scored even higher at 84%.
Travel incentives can be fulfilled in various ways.
Visa incentive cards allow your clients and employees full control over their own travel bookings. This option offers the added bonus of putting your company logo on the front for extra personalization.
Travel-related digital gift cards are the easiest way to deliver travel incentives. Whether you’re encouraging a team lunch, offering an excursion, or using the promise of a luxury hotel stay to incentivize actions, here are a few travel-related gift brands to consider offering:
- Flights: Delta, American Airlines, Air Canada
- Restaurants: Hard Rock Cafe, Chili’s, Earls
- Hotels: Fairmont, Best Western, Marriott, Airbnb
- Rideshares: Lyft, Uber
The types of incentives and benchmarks for earning them depend on the company and its goals, values, and industry.
For example, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company might aim to surpass a certain figure for monthly recurring revenue growth and reward their team with a group vacation if they pull it off. Meanwhile, a pharmacy company may use travel incentives to engage and reward channel partners, strengthening vital business relationships.
So, why are companies using travel incentives?
According to the results of the 2022 Incentive Travel Index survey, 91% of respondents agree that travel incentives will play an important role in strengthening engagement and company culture with a dispersed workforce.
Companies are using incentives to keep their networks alive through travel, rewarding employees, partners, and staff with trips that blend work and leisure, and giving them opportunities to meet face-to-face with coworkers and clients. As destinations around the world rekindle their travel industries, companies have more exciting reward options for their travel incentive programs.
As rewards industry professionals, our team at Giftbit wants to help you gain the benefits of travel incentives by helping you learn everything you need to know about building a successful travel rewards program.
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