Incentive travel: why you should you think about it for your company?

Pay a vacation to your employees? No, incentive travel is an investment that improves business productivity.

All the doubts and perplexities surrounding the benefits of an incentive trip have been swept away in a few years. We still remember those who branded them as “paid holidays for employees”. This was not exactly the case, on the contrary.

And in fact, more and more companies have included and are inserting incentive travel within their budget. They put it in as a cost. But in reality, this travel is having so much success because it is an investment. An investment in the most important capital that any company can have: the human one.

Why more and more companies are choosing incentive travel?

It is people who make companies great. Both big owners who risk every day choosing their business directions according to their “helicopter view”, both men and women who, every day, work for a company (regardless of size or product sector) doing their best with commitment and seriousness.

This is the reason why more and more companies are choosing luxury travel as an incentive to reward and motivate the staff to achieve better results by their employees.

How incentive travel works

How does incentive travel work? Simple: the company sets a target in terms of turnover, margins or any other parameter and stimulates their employees to reach it. For this mechanism to work, the prize must be of value. In the past one was more accustomed to bonuses or other cash prizes, today the idea of ​​a vacation with all the comforts of dream places is preferable also because it offers the employee not only a valuable prize but also allows him to “top up the batteries” after the hard work done in the previous months.

Many statistics have revealed how a luxury trip is considered by many to be even preferable to an economic bonus.

It’s not so strange: when you work to get a reward that you want, you reach much higher than average levels of concentration and productivity. Through the aim of an incentive trip, the company stimulates the strategic and creative thinking of those who compete for it, pushing employees to consider the best ways to reach the finish line in the shortest time.

Money is a powerful stimulus, but “dreaming” breathless places and exotic beaches as a reward is certainly more exciting. An incentive trip generates a virtuous circle able to improve the overall productivity.

From incentive travel to incentive meetings

The results are there for all to see. So much so that, alongside incentive travel, incentive meetings are also taking hold. According to some studies, they are now considered as a specific category which includes 7% of the overall activity of the meetings.

For a high-level incentive holiday …

We are therefore in full swing of incentive travel. An investment that, as we have seen, improves efficiency and productivity from a working point of view while, from a human point of view, it improves relations with employees because it rewards them by offering them something that is economically evaluable and humanly significant. Travelling, in fact, gives an experience that generates sometimes indelible memories and allows those who do it to “grow” on a personal level. Beyond the luxury and comforts that are part of a trip of this type.

That’s why, to offer a high-level incentive holiday it is not enough to choose an exotic destination but you need to build a rich and meaningful experience by taking care of activities, any trips/excursions and other activities that make the trip unforgettable. To do this, the advice is to take advantage of the advice of incentive travel professionals who can develop tailor-made proposals for each company. A holiday without activities risks being monotonous and, in the same way, an agenda too busy with commitments can ruin the holiday. An incentive must be neither boredom nor an exhausting journey, otherwise who will really want to win it?

Besides, it is important to test the impact on the morale of the team of incentive travel experiences (both that of travellers and employees not involved) to make better proposals.

In short, the incentive trip is not a simple vacation paid to an employee but is the ideal tool to improve productivity and human and professional relationship with the staff in the company.