What do Incentive Travel Participants Think about their Program?

The Site International Foundation and the Incentive Travel Council (ITC) commissioned Dr. Scott Jeffries and Monmouth University to conduct a joint study focused on The Incentive Travel Participant Viewpoint.

With the study currently underway, insights and findings will be shared over a period of time beginning with initial outcomes in mid-October release, providing dialogue for 2011 IMEX America and the Site International Conference events in Las Vegas. The full published report will be released at the end of the year and will be distributed globally via both organizations.

"Collaborations like this one are important and benefit a diverse group of industry professionals, said Steve O’Malley, SITE International Foundation president. “When we leverage the power of shared resources we can deliver some amazing data. We are positive The Incentive Travel Participant Viewpoint study will deliver insight into participant behaviors and key motivators that each of us can consider as we design and deliver extraordinary motivational programs in the future."

Jim Ruszala, past president of the ITC commented, "The incentive industry has made strong strides over the past few years in better providing transparency into the business values achieved through incentive programs. However, the industry is still starving for specific incentive travel based insights on ways to improve that business value by creating more meaningful, motivational and memorable experiences for its incentive travel participants.  Organizations are increasingly facing new as well as unique business challenges every day. To overcome these challenges and help achieve business performance objectives, we need to approach incentive travel design differently with an added attention towards how we can better engage and improve participant experiences.”

Why Independent Dealer Networks Should Consider Incentive Travel

Reposted from Meetings & Incentive Travel - click here for link

True or False?  Incentive Travel Improves Channel Performance

Answer: True. Incentive travel helps organizations achieve targeted business performance goals, but they also represent a sound approach towards establishing and building strong relationships in your independent distributor channel.

Recently, one of our clients asked us to help provide further performance insights into their channel-based incentive travel program. This organization has run an incentive travel program for its dealer network for several years. While it understood the sales volume created by the dealers that earned the trip, it also wanted to understand other ways in which the program created value. Essentially, we wanted to answer the question – how has this long running, annual program provided value from the participants’ viewpoint? Here’s what we found…

Participants firmly perceive the incentive travel program as a strong and effective influencer in helping the organization drive performance through the dealer channel. A common participant response was, “the opportunity to earn the incentive travel award greatly encouraged me to increase my performance efforts.” As for whether the program was creating brand loyalty and advocacy, our findings were best summarized with another participant statement that said, “The program creates loyalty to the company, showing myself and other dealers just how much the organization cares and wants to help us.”

By continuing to establish and nurture dealer relationships through an incentive travel strategy, our client also created and experienced added, long-term value that went beyond short-term measurements. Program participant comments such as “I think the best part (as always) is networking with other distributors” and “[the award program is] a great way to build a long-term bond with other distributors” echoed throughout our findings.

To the dealer, relationship building is viewed as a high-value opportunity. With other channel representatives on the program, participants are continually afforded a setting where they can establish and build relationships with one another. This creates substantial, long-term value, as participants are able to further exchange ideas and insights on best practices, market shifts, challenges and business opportunities.

If you have distributors, sales networks or other channel partners, where are they fitting into the incentive travel mix?