Find out about travel incentives for employees: how reward trips work, and why they can help boost productivity and more for your business.
As the corporate landscape continues to evolve rapidly and the market becomes increasingly competitive, it’s more important than ever to ensure your team is motivated, enthusiastic and passionate about your business. One way that businesses are ensuring that these goals are met consistently is by establishing business travel incentive programmes.
Combining the allure of travel with the recognition and rewarding of achievement, business travel incentive programmes encourage employees to excel at their highest level and help your company meet and exceed their ultimate performance goals. All the while, these programmes are known to boost employee satisfaction, loyalty and engagement.
The world of business travel has transformed greatly, and corporate incentive travel is an opportunity to adapt for a new generation of business travellers.
There are a few important factors to consider in order to make the most of incentive travel programmes, so let’s have a look at what exactly company incentive trips are, how they work, what their benefits are, and how to start an incentive programme.
Incentive travel is a programme wherein employees are rewarded for strong performance with opportunities to travel. This is a motivational tool that’s designed to boost employee satisfaction, productivity and profitability.
These programmes could be offered alongside financial bonuses and other prizes, but typically they replace these material rewards as a company’s primary incentive. Travel incentives for employees offer a unique, experience-based reward: a trip to an exciting destination. Teams who meet or surpass predetermined goals or quotas are rewarded with these trips, and there’s an endless variety of trips that a business may offer.
While any company can benefit from corporate incentive travel, traditionally these programmes were most commonly employed by sales companies, or other businesses with easily quantifiable performance goals. They work well for sales teams as high performance is very easy to measure and reward. However, beyond sales, many companies are expanding these programmes to include various other departments or even customers and partners as a means of building stronger, more engaged relationships across the board.
There are so many kinds of travel you can offer as company incentive trips, each with their own benefits and appeal. What you go for will depend on what’s best for your employees – it’s important to choose a reward trip that you know will motivate your teams to do their best.
Some examples of travel incentives for employees include:
These trips will usually be at least 3 days, with an itinerary that balances group activities, shared meals, and plenty of downtime for employees to unwind and do what they’d like. They could be all-expenses-paid, or you may opt to cover certain costs like flights, accommodation and activities.
While it’s very important to offer your employees plenty of free time and non-business-related activities, a great incentive trip will also include team activities to aid development, collaboration, and more. This could be a special conference, team building activities, workshops, or perhaps instilling the company’s values with a day of volunteering.
For the most part, though, corporate travel incentives should be centred around offering your high-performing teams the opportunity to re-energise, explore, and enjoy their time away.
Business travel incentive programmes offer a wide range of benefits that go beyond the traditional financial reward system. Travel incentives are likely to yield more positive results when it comes to employee retention, motivation, unity, productivity, and more. For the same reason that corporate retreats have become an increasingly popular way to energise teams, incentive programmes can make a massive positive difference both for your company and for your employees.
Let's take a closer look at some of the key advantages:
One of the most immediate and tangible benefits of incentive travel programmes is the boost in motivation they provide to employees. Knowing that an enticing trip is up for grabs can inspire employees to gain energy and motivation, increase productivity, and strive for excellence in their work. The aspirational nature of travel makes it an effective motivator; while cash bonuses may be spent or forgotten quickly, the memories of an unforgettable trip last and serve as long-term inspiration.
A study conducted by the Incentive Research Foundation (IRF) unveiled a 22% gain in performance from employees who participate in incentive travel programmes compared to those don’t, demonstrating that the allure of travel motivates employees to work harder.
Travel incentive programmes promote a healthy work-life balance, resulting in increased morale.
Incentive trips for employees can also play a significant role in improving employee retention. Companies that reward employees with unique travel experiences demonstrate that they value their contributions, which fosters a deeper sense of loyalty. Employees who feel appreciated are less likely to seek opportunities elsewhere, reducing turnover and the associated costs of recruiting and training new staff.
Plus, travel incentives help build a stronger emotional connection between employees and the company, and within the team itself. Rewards trips create the opportunity for employees to share truly memorable experiences together, strengthening the allegiance they have with the team and the company.
Speaking of loyalty and unity – corporate travel incentives are a fantastic way to bring teams closer together and foster team cohesion. Team bonding is hugely important, but it shouldn’t feel forced. Traveling together gives employees who don’t get to interact regularly in the office as well as those who work in different locations the chance to get to know each other and share cherished moments.
By creating a positive, fun, and relaxed environment, incentive trips for employees encourage collaboration, open communication, and relationship building among team members. These stronger interpersonal connections often translate to improved teamwork and collaboration in the workplace, ultimately benefiting the company.
Including team-building activities in incentive trips helps cultivate long-lasting relationships and a collaborative culture among employees. Plus, a shared reward means teams are working collectively towards the same goal, as opposed to financial bonuses and other prizes that don’t necessarily encourage strong teamwork and keen collaboration.
A well-designed incentive travel programme can strengthen company culture by aligning employees' goals with the overall mission of the business. When employees see that their hard work and dedication are recognised and rewarded, they’re more likely to believe in the company’s vision and values. This in turn leads to higher levels of satisfaction and a more positive work environment.
Travel incentives can promote your company's brand. Employees who share their experiences on social media or with friends and family contribute to a positive brand image, making your company more attractive to potential hires. In today’s competitive job market, offering unique travel experiences as part of the employee benefits package and promoting a fantastic work-life balance can set your company apart from others.
With your team more motivated to perform and a stronger collaborative spirit, you’re likely to reach or even surpass your performance targets a whole lot quicker. In most cases, business travel incentive programmes require clear, measurable team goals – such as a particular sales target – that are associated with an attractive reward. Knowing exactly what needs to be achieved to get that reward gives employees a tangible target to remain focused on.
You can view business travel incentive programmes as an investment. You’re investing in the improved performance, productivity, retention and happiness of your employees, and more often than not the return on that investment is much stronger than traditional financial bonuses. It doesn’t just end with the trip – your team will return home feeling replenished, invigorated, and even more motivated to work hard for the company that has rewarded them so well.
Some careful planning is required to ensure you develop a successful, beneficial incentive travel programme. There are a few very important factors to consider and there’s not one catch-all method for success - it all comes down to your business and what’s best for your team.
Below are some of the most important things to consider when establishing an incentive travel programme:
It may be impractical to offer the same incentives to every single one of your employees. You’ll need to determine who exactly the rewards are designed for – such as sales teams, customer service teams, or top-performing executives, for example. You may have scalable rewards that can be applied to different departments or objectives. You certainly don’t want any employees to feel like they’re missing out or unappreciated because they’re ineligible for rewards, so it may be beneficial to establish various programmes for different areas of the business.
You might also offer incentive programmes to individuals instead of or in addition to teams. While this won’t have the same impact on collaboration, it may foster a competitive spirit that can be just as beneficial for performance.
The first thing you need to know is exactly what you want to achieve from your incentive programme. You likely already have clear objectives for your business, but for an employee incentive programme to work best, it helps to align these goals with quantifiable targets for your employees to work towards, such as sales figures or customer satisfaction scores, for example. Remember to ensure that these metrics, while not necessarily easy to achieve, are attainable. If the goals are too out-of-reach and feel impossible, it may have a counteractive effect and decrease motivation and morale. You’ll need to strike a careful balance between attainability and challenging your employees.
Planning the trip and choosing the right location is a very important step. You want to pick activities and destinations that will facilitate your goals, whether it’s boosting morale, encouraging relaxation, encouraging learning and development, improving teamwork or all of the above.
A group improv class can build confidence for the team, a spa day will promote wellbeing and mindfulness, a sales workshop might offer employees the opportunity to develop their careers – the activities you choose can help ensure that the positive benefits of the programme extend beyond the trip itself.
It’s also important to know your employees and their interests. While you may like the idea of an adventurous trip packed with extreme sports, it may not appeal to everyone, meaning it won’t motivate your employees in the way it should. If you’re unsure, perhaps you can conduct a survey to gauge what kind of travel and activities would be most appealing to your staff.
There are other factors to consider when planning the trip, like time of year, budget, visa restrictions, and more. Using travel management tools like Booking.com for Business will help you manage the logistics of corporate travel with ease. You’ll also benefit from seeking out special packages and deals designed for business travel, like choosing dedicated corporate travel accommodation, for example.
Once you’ve designed the programme, you need to get the word out to your employees and create excitement about it. Build hype with a special announcement – whether via email, at a special launch event or otherwise – and be very clear about what the programme is and how it will work.
Highlight the benefits it will have for employees and sell the attractiveness of the reward. Ensure you have experts who can answer any questions employees may have about the programme and provide accessible resources that anyone can refer to at any time if they need more info about the destination, the criteria, timelines, and more.
Once you’ve kicked off the programme, remember to provide regular updates and progress reports, and continue encouraging your employees to work towards the incentive goals, celebrating important milestones along the way.
Remember, the key is to build excitement and anticipation around the trip.
After a trip is complete, make sure you continue to monitor how it has impacted your business. Keep your ultimate objectives in mind and evaluate how the travel incentives have shifted your company culture, performance, customer retention and profitability. You might also conduct surveys and host debriefing sessions to gather feedback on what worked and what didn’t, so you can continue to improve your process as you go.
Business travel incentive programmes are a hugely powerful tool with a long list of benefits. If executed well, a successful incentive programme can boost productivity and morale, strengthen performance, enhance your brand, promote healthy work-life balance, and so much more. Whatever your business goals, a rewards trip can help facilitate them.
Booking.com for Business helps companies of any size make the most out of incentive travel with a free corporate travel management platform that helps streamline the process, save you money, and guide your goals.
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