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.

When organizations contact a meeting planner, they are often trying to plan corporate travel on a budget. Many organizations find themselves in this financial dilemma. They understand the need for business travel incentives, but because of they unstable economy their budgets are a bit constrained. Deciding where and how to save money when planning incentive travel can be somewhat tricky. Organizations do not want to be extremely frugal with destinations, accommodations, or dining because this can make incentive travel unappealing. For organizations that desire assistance with incentive planning, a meeting planner may suggest the organization scrutinize their program content. By eliminating unnecessary program content, an organization may be able to save thousands of dollars.

One meeting planner determined how much a company could save by eliminating bottled water from a 3-day meeting. It was determined that the company would save over $65,000 by not offering attendees bottled water. As one can see, small incidentals can have large expenses. While eliminating bottled water may not be right for every organization, this example shows the effect that seemingly insignificant items can have on an organization's business travel budget. By carefully scrutinizing a meeting's program content, organizations may be able to save a bundle.

A recent survey conducted by MeetingNews found that most meeting planners expected meeting budgets to increase or stay the same over the first six months of 2010, when compared to meeting budget trends over the last six months of 2009. This optimistic outlook may be further proof that companies across the country are beginning to recover from the recent recession. The survey, which included 220 participants, found that only 19% of responding meeting planners anticipated further budget cuts or smaller meeting budgets in the first six months of 2010. Additionally, seventeen percent of respondents actually reported increased spending in the last half of 2009, showing that some companies continued to prioritize meeting spending during the economic downturn or were already beginning to enjoy financial recovery at that time.

Just over half of the survey participants (51%) expected meeting budgets to stay the same during the first half of 2010. These results support the hope that deep budget cuts are now behind us for the most part and indicate that things may start looking up for the corporate travel and business meeting industries. This is good news for meeting and travel planners who learned tips and tricks for cutting costs without losing quality during the economic downturn and will now be in an excellent position for providing exceptional planning services with increased budgets.

Have you ever questioned why or if employee incentive travel is more advantageous than a cash bonus? Is there more to incentive travel than just compensating employee(s) for a job well done?

Discerning the things that motivate your employees is a crucial feature of conducting business. It is crucial to learn just what motivates each person as an individual. If the incentive were a trip, where would your employees like to visit? Would they like to be pampered with a spa vacation, go on a cruise to exotic destinations, or is he more fascinated by out-of-doors activities such as water sports or golf? Modifying the incentives you offer is more likely to push employees to do their finest to get the trip.

Incentive travel is an aspect in keeping valued employees members. It is more cost effective to retain skilled individuals working for you rather than to train new people on a regular basis. Thanking employees for a job well done is something else that should not be overlooked. Those two words can stimulate workers on toward a common goal, particularly in difficult times.

Team efforts that earn a wonderful trip for the team involved promote the weaker members to work toward the capability level of the stronger team members. Contests can stimulate but they can also make staff to work against each other. Cooperative efforts many times get more valuable results and turn out employees who are more loyal too.

An all inclusive cruise meeting is one great way to motivate and thank employees. Putting together a corporate event such as a conference or a business meeting at sea makes a lot of sense, especially when it comes to getting the greatest value from the investments. Cruising can literally slash the cost of land based venues by 25-40%, allowing planners to persevere with today's shrinking budgets. Why not make your next corporate incentive event a meeting-at-sea?

Seasite.com, the first online group cruise planning resource, allows event planners to capitalize on the value of all inclusive cruise meeting and incentives. Cruising can slash the expense of land based venues by 25-40%, allowing planners to persevere with today's shrinking budgets. Why not make your next corporate incentive a meeting at sea? Take a look at Seasite.com today!

Corporate travel planners are well-versed in working with budgets and are pros at finding exceptional deals and negotiating their way into cost savings for their events. Now more than ever, saving money wherever possible is critically important, particularly as many small businesses and large corporations are facing shrinking budgets and closer public scrutiny. It can be a bit of a challenge to cut costs without cutting quality, but with a little time and effort it is completely doable.

One of the keys to successfully cutting costs without losing quality is properly determining which aspects of your event can weather some cutbacks without being significantly affected. Once you have determined which components can handle some cutbacks, the trick is to find ways to cut these costs that will not be noticeable to your attendees.

For example, you might opt for a lunch event, instead of a dinner event, or you might go with an off-brand digital camera, rather than a name brand camera for an incentive travel pillow gift. You can also opt for business class for flights, or bypass flying entirely and opt for train travel, or a bus charter if the event is close to home. Some planners have also found having servers pass appetizers, rather than having a buffet-style set up, provides significant savings, as folks tend to eat less when they are served in this manner.

If you are looking for an exciting, innovative venue for an upcoming convention, conference or trade show that will ensure great attendance with its wide-ranging appeal, you may want to consider hosting your next event on a cruise ship. Whether you opt for a dockside charter or an event at sea, cruise ships – which can accommodate up to 5,000 people – will significantly increase the appeal of your event.

Attending a conference or convention on a cruise ship will be something new and exciting for most people, and will be enticing enough to convince indecisive folks that they should definitely attend.

Cruise ships offer a self-contained venue with all of the services and amenities you need for a successful event or meeting at sea and can be organized in a way that will support a variety of event budgets. They also provide the opportunity to have a willingly captive audience for your event, particularly if you opt for a full-ship charter, which allows you to customize the entire venue and schedule, including liberal logo placement to increase awareness and recognition of your brand.

When you opt to host your next conference, trade show or convention on a cruise ship, it is sure to be a memorable event that will have the attendees talking about you and your planning services long after they are back on shore, ensuring that they will remember your company name the next time they are in need of event planning services.