Incentive travel is a motivational tool which you can leverage to enhance productivity or achieve business objectives. Participants earn the reward (a trip) based on a specific level of achievement determined by management.
To maximise the benefit of your incentive travel programme, every successful incentive travel experience begins with careful planning. Here’s how we do it at Thompsons Travel:
What’s the goal?
Start with determining your incentive travel goals by outlining what the trip should accomplish, whether it is an increase in sales, production output or profits, or a reduction in lost contracts. Define the values, interests and preferences of the target travel group, be they management, salespeople or even customers.
Establish the earning and selection criteria for the reward
No matter the goal, it is essential to provide a specific value, such as a sales quota which must be met, a particular rand amount of revenue which must be reached, or any other method of evaluating the performance of the participants. These benchmarks must be communicated clearly and consistently to your target travel group. Be sure you have a transparent system in place to track the performance level of your employees; keep detailed records that prove the productivity of the earners and their contributions to the goals.
Design a desirable programme
The incentive, by definition, needs to entice your workforce to get moving above and beyond the call of duty, which is why the design of the travel programme is an important consideration. As a rule of thumb, a desirable destination, interactive sessions and leisure time for the earners all add up to a successful incentive.
Top-level buy-in
For reward earners, an incentive trip provides more than a much-deserved holiday. It is a chance to network – which is why top-level buy-in is critical. With executives and key managers acting as hosts, they reinforce the company’s commitment to the reward programme and enable networking opportunities for top performers to build relationships and collaborate with other top performers. This further motivates reward earners to continue to perform at their best.
Need incentives? Contact Thompsons Travel today for all your incentive travel requirements and take advantage of our exceptional attention to detail, superb destination knowledge, creativity and passion.
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