Corporate Travel Destinations

Companies have offered incentive cruise travel to employees and even partners for years now, but the tightening of budgets has caused some companies to drop their incentive cruise travel plans and other perks. As the economy starts to recover, this could prove to be a critical mistake that might end up in a massive exodus of workers from companies that do not offer incentive cruise travel to those that do.

Here’s the problem: the workers that have not been offered sufficient incentives seem to be ready to leave their jobs at the soonest possible convenience. This means that they are usually feeling under appreciated in the sense that matters most to them: the pocketbook. There are plenty of options to get around this, but paying every worker what they are worth is the most expensive choice. Offering inclusive cruise travel with or without additional duties such as meeting with clients or partners can easily offer a tangible incentive for the whole office.

Incentive cruise travel and be a single or periodic replacement for offering proper financial compensation for dozens of employees during financially lean times. When the bottom line improves, by all means start paying more to keep talent. Until then, consider using incentive cruise travel to keep employees loyal and working hard instead of hardly looking while browsing Monster.com in their spare time.

More and more businesses are tightening their budgets, but that leaves an opening for businesses willing to offer inventive travel to their staff, partners, suppliers, customers, and/or political contacts. Here’s what you really need to know when you start planning your incentive travel options:

• As the competition retreats into walls of financial security, you get the opportunity to step up your relations with workers, vendors, suppliers, and other contacts. Use it or someone else will.
• If you do decide to invest extra in incentive travel options to redefine your business, make sure everything else is suitably classed up. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, so building a strong link next to several weak links is not a good idea.
• Make sure that the offers are given to the right people. Employees tend to enjoy competitions, but some suppliers or partners might take umbrage to finding out that a peer was invited on a company-sponsored vacation when they were not.
• Be sure to target partners or vendors that look like they have more than just the bottom line in mind, and look carefully at employees that are worth far more than they are being paid. Both are likely to look at other options when they get the chance.

Meetings in other countries have been a popular concept for businesses over the past several years, especially as air travel continues to become increasingly affordable. Several countries have developed entire regions dedicated to earning the business of enterprise clients and this business serves many purposes:

• Businesses get great deals on accommodations and entertainment, often with amazing all inclusive packages. The prices offered by many developing countries on goods, services, and accommodations are absolutely unbeatable and in volume can even make up for the price of airfare.
• Attendants of such events or meetings get a chance to travel and see the world. This broadens perspectives, increases loyalty, and even gets the mind working in entirely new ways. Who knows what the benefit will be of stirring up the creative juices with new stimuli, but they are bound to be profound and lasting.
• The communities in developing nations that have invested heavily in building the infrastructure necessary to attract business customers benefit from having tourists and may even have other business opportunities worth looking into. Some countries develop business-oriented tourist facilities in tandem with plans to build business parks and production facilities that could further enhance the relationship between a developing country and businesses looking to lower their bottom line. The result can be a win-win situation if the circumstances are right.

Travel is one of the best incentives a company can offer employees, partners, potential clients, existing clients, and even suppliers. Travel usually needs to be business-related, but that is actually surprisingly easy to accomplish. If you have not considered travel incentives yet, think about the following:

• Employee Motivation – If employees are starting to look at Monster.com or otherwise job hunt instead of work, then there is a problem. Sometimes it is not practical to solve such problems with increased salaries, but if a seminar might benefit the company then it could prove to be the basis for a great intra-office competition where the top employee or employees get to enjoy a paid vacation on the company dime.
• Customer Loyalty – Everyone in the business community has figured out that there is much more to business than the bottom line. There are perks to consider as well, and those companies that offer perks to suppliers and customers alike find that their shipments arrive with less difficulty and that customers overlook small differences in bids in favor of a name that they know and trust.
• Potential Clients Convert Better – Potential clients often need to be ‘buttered up’ in order to get them to convert. Why not give a sales pitch during 18 holes on a great golf course? Who could resist an invitation like that?

Cruises are unique corporate destinations for a number of reasons, but one of the least considered reasons would be the fact that the trip really is the destination. Consider how much time busy businesspeople waste every year traveling all around the world in order to get to Conference A or Seminar B. Now take that time and multiply it by an executive salary, add in hotel and travel fees from multiple companies and the number quickly balloons in the billions or trillions of dollars.

Consider the difference that cruise meetings have ot offer to the bottom line:

• The amount of time that expensive business people spend on cruises tends to be more productive than time spent on aircraft and/or airports.
• Most cruises feature multiple ports of call, which makes flights shorter and less airline/airplane transfers likely.
• Businesspeople also get to recharge their mental and social batteries while on cruises, and that alone is difficult to put a price tag on. It certainly beats allowing high-powered individuals to take time off and spend time on the golf course.
• The fact that the method of travel is actually a destination in and of itself means that more work and more relaxation can be enjoyed.
• By getting more services from a single vendor, in this case the cruise line, it is possible to save lots of money.

When it comes time to start discussing corporate travel options and ways to justify the expenses, which are usually very low compared to leisure travel, it is possible to forget the tax benefits of corporate expenses. While tax law is incredibly complex, the following generalities are often accurate and beneficial to the company’s bottom line:

• By availing themselves of the networking opportunities and other business options, most businesses can find it very easy to allow for their business trips to qualify as business expenses that can be written off as tax deductions.

• Tax deductions related to travel may not necessarily be on a 1 to 1 basis in terms of dollar value, but having a loss largely consumed by tax liability that in turn presents business opportunities or advantages is generally considered to be a great idea.

• Excellent records should be kept of all corporate travel expenses. Consider using inclusive travel options for easier accounting and less time spent planning.

As with any tax-related issue, it would be wise to consult with a qualified accountant to make the final determination regarding what is and is not allowed for deductions. A short meeting with the staff accountant or outside accountant could be the difference between stepping up to the challenge and opportunities available or continuing on a stable but less profitable path.

Inclusive business incentives are a type of travel that includes everything that the traveler will typically need. This ranges from the business meeting rooms to meals and a room, and may even cover a few recreational activities in some cases. The good news is that not only are inclusive business incentives easy to plan, they are affordable and good for public relations.

Why are inclusive business incentives typically good for public relations? The answer is that most of the venues offering the best deals on inclusive business incentives are developing countries that are placing an emphasis and promoting their tourism infrastructure. Governments around the world are passing law after law to compete for inclusive business travel of all kinds, which typically makes the inclusive business incentives even more desirable as the locations can be very exotic.

There are also more traditional inclusive business travel destinations that also offer great inclusive incentives, but the best deals are often in developing nations. For those that prefer specific destinations, such as Hawaii or the Cayman Islands, there are still great bargains to be had by going with inclusive travel planning versus paying the local rate and negotiating with several vendors for a wide variety of goods, services, and entertainment options. This makes inclusive business incentives affordable compared to any alternative, even if the good PR option is not taken.

Carbon emission offsetting is a controversial topic. There are three basic schools of thought: those who wholeheartedly support it, those who believe it lets folks off easy and puts off finding other viable solutions, and those who think it is simply a money-making scheme. While not everyone believes carbon offsetting is the answer, it is certainly growing in popularity and is one way corporations can take an environmental stand and offset carbon emissions that are inevitable when travel and events take place.

If you are interested in learning more about carbon offsets for corporate travel and event planning, there are several websites dedicated to educating the public and offering offsets. Websites like carbonfund.org have carbon calculators for travel, business events and conferences, weddings and other activities, making it simple to help your clients estimate the amount of carbon their event or transportation will create. This allows them to determine the amount of offsetting they would like to undertake – if any – to mitigate the carbon emissions associated with their business meeting or corporate travel.

The bottom line is that offering carbon offsets for corporate travel and events is a simple way to expand the services you offer to corporate clients. Those who are interested in offsets will appreciate the convenience, while those who are not interested can simply not take part in that particular service. To find carbon offset sellers, visit Ecobusinesslinks.com, which has a list of non-profit organizations and for-profit companies offering carbon offsets.