Top 2012 Performance Trends for Incentive Travel

Reposted from Meetings & Incentive Travel - click here for link


Peering into the looking glass for incentive travel trends, one key area stands out amongst the rest as a clear and distinct focal point – incentive travel design. The industry has greatly capitalized on driving operational cost efficiencies and achieving flawless execution. But, it’s of even greater importance that we ensure our strategies are leading us down the best paths of participant engagement if we’re going to achieve today’s more aggressive business objectives. This requires a more people-centered set of design practices that provide for approaches that are more connected to and aligned with participant stakeholders. Here are five elements to consider as you begin incentive travel design discussions for future programs:

1. Participant-Driven Design
Participants having a stronger hand in helping co-create incentive travel design will continue to rise. While we’ve tended to ask participants in the past what they thought about program experiences, we’re realizing more and more that we also need to ask them what they think as well - beforehand. It’s this forward looking view that helps organizations unlock the greater potential value that exists for better motivating incentive travel participants. This practice will be the linking pin for those organizations that are looking to move performance outcomes from good to better.

2. Beyond Generational Diversity
Today’s participants are more diverse than ever. This is commonly thought of as “generational differences”, but incentive travel design decisions have to go beyond this as a sole consideration point. For instance, experiential, educational and cultural diversity are other considerations that simple generational segmentations don’t consider. These and other forms of diversity are influencing how we think and act at both the organizational and participant level. The growing engagement of incentive travel participant stakeholders in conversations during the design stage will help lead to improved decisions, stronger motivational appeal, and better business outcomes.

3. Maintaining Motivational Engagement
There have been a number of consolidations – organizationally and incentive travel specific - the past few years, plus a shift to more open-ended incentive program structures. These are a few examples that are resulting in more participation and more earners on programs. So, what about the ability to effectively network, interact between peers, management, leadership, etc.? That doesn’t have to diminish, and organizations are looking for what their best options are from the participants’ viewpoint. These are resulting in program waves, where two or more groups follow one another at a destination to maintain cost and operational efficiencies but also retain high levels of engagement with more manageable attendee levels. In addition, organizations are also creating tiered performance thresholds; of which, keep earners engaged even after they achieve minimum program goals so that they have the opportunity to further plus-up their reward and recognition experience even further.

4. Family Friendly Incentive Travel
About 70 percent of American children live in households where both parents are in the workforce. Now, add to that that the average American only has 13 days off per year. Sure, we now have more mobility thanks to technology, but nearly half of American workers are now bringing work home with them regularly. Incentive travel family participants are struggling to create some degree of work/life balance. Program design considerations with family friendly guest policy features will create a significant shift for incentive travel strategies over the next few years. As such, organizations need to avoid making broad assumptions and gain a clearer perspective on how they can be not only more accommodating, but friendlier to participants with a family. What’s the potential for distraction from agendas? Would participants’ without children mind? Do we help pay for, subsidize or create buy-in rate options? These and other questions need to be identified and answered to secure the longer-term relevancy of your program’s design.

5. Redesigning Qualification Structures
So, the waters of open-ended versus closed-ended qualification structures will be tested once again, but there’s more to it. Here’s the thing, this approach to rewarding and recognizing performance comes with higher performance standards for achievement. A limiting factor is that closed-ended incentive travel qualification structures are often meaningful to only a discrete number within the participant base – top performing “A-players”. Breakthrough performance will require new thinking about how to engage the broader participant audience. This will bring in deeper discussions on qualification structures (open vs. closed) as well as the potential returns for added, more targeted incentive travel program tiers – think of these as programs based upon what levels of performance participants achieve. These added programs might involve different features, or be totally separate designs to provide a stairway of motivated performance.

Understanding what’s important from the participants’ viewpoint has to do more with what views are shared between the organization and their program participants – past, present and future. This doesn’t occur in a vacuum, it has to involve active and on-going efforts to clearly understand and gain insights on participants’ needs, wants and preferences. Every organization is unique, so too are their incentive travel participants. Running a one-size-fits-all design approach can be a gamble and operational hazard in the short, mid and long-term.

Three Simple Steps to Create Better Meeting Experiences

Reposted from Elite Meetings Blog - click here for link

Designing for a more engaging experience for your meetings can significantly improve performance from both a business and attendee vantage point. Yet, this is more difficult to do in today’s world due to a host of challenges, including budgeting constraints and increased risks for attendee distractions. From the moment an attendee walks into a general or breakout session, the need to immediately capture attention is just as important as maintaining engagement during the entire experience. So, how can a meeting planner create better engaging meeting, event or incentive experiences? Here are three areas to consider:

1.)  Deliver the Right Content
Ever run into a situation where you have a content-rich agenda but aren’t quite sure how to deliver it effectively? This happens a lot. While the core objective of your program involves communicating and connecting key messages with your audience, the challenge is to ensure you do so using the best possible approach. To be more effective, consider the audience.  For instance, a lack of engagement during a meeting can occur in situations when content is not delivered effectively or simply doesn’t strike audience interests. Testing and gaining audience member insights during the design stage of your program can prove highly valuable in creating and delivering on your key objectives in more meaningful ways for attendees.

For organizations that are on strict budgets, gaining audience insight and feedback is even more important. Lisa Marie Collins, a producer with Freeman – a Maritz Travel partner, also suggests that, “When designing your program, consider going beyond just surveying the audience to find out what topics they’re interested in. This is also an opportunity to engage attendees leading up to the event. Asking attendees to submit questions in advance, for instance, can help create buzz and excitement earlier and assist in better connecting with speakers on content and delivery.”

2.)  Set the Stage
Maritz Travel recently co-produced an event with its partner, Destinations by Design. Tami Hance, vice president for Destinations by Design, really helped create impact the instant an attendee entered the room. According to Tami, everything counts when you’re setting the stage for a truly engaging meeting. And, creating a conversational atmosphere can help spark strong, sustainable engagement from beginning to end. This requires a need for instantly capturing and retaining the audience members’ attention throughout the experience. The use of lighting, colors, and alternative seating arrangements such as lounge settings, table inlays, stage footprints that are just slightly higher than seating levels and go into the audience are examples planners can leverage to better connect with and engage attendees. It’s through these types of efforts that you’re able to instantly capture the audience members by surprise and captivate their attention throughout the experience. Attendees, in turn, experience an at-home atmosphere while being better immersed and connected to your meeting through a much more memorable engagement.

Is this something that is possible from large, general sessions to smaller breakout sessions? Of course it is. As Tami puts it, “It’s all about creating continuity through the theming and presentation of each room. There’s also the opportunity to divide larger general sessions into diverse seating options. You don’t have to be uniform throughout the room. The front, mid and back portions of the room can have diverse options, leave it up to the audience to determine where they want to participate from and engage you.”

As you can see, there are a number of options available when setting the stage, it just requires thinking differently about what you can do that best positions your program for achieving and exceeding expectations – even if it’s a breakaway from past traditional practices.

3.)  Incorporate Distractions
Audience multi-tasking during presentations can be a performance killer. While it’s a situation that’s always presented itself, it’s been amplified these past few years mainly by increased mobile device capabilities. Email, texting, social media and various apps provide audience members temptation, convenience and discretion. Attempting to limit distractions by asking attendees to “Please silence all cell phones!” really doesn’t work. So, why not embrace it instead? Consider ways by which you can incorporate mobile to further create engagement. Polling the audience, texting questions and creating a social following before, during and after presentations can create richer experiences that help further inform, excite and engage audience members.

If performance expectations must continue being met, if not exceeded, meeting professionals need to think more about the experience they’re creating for the audience. Whether a meeting or event attendee, or an incentive travel participant, creating a more aligned, engaging and interactive experience can greatly benefit from these approaches. If you’re looking for even better impact, consider integrating all three into your next program for outcomes that are more meaningful and memorable for your business and your audience.