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.

The meeting world is changing. You, as a planner, already know that. “Destination” doesn’t just mean where people are traveling, it also means where the industry and your business are going. It means where your client’s business is going. It means where the economy is going.

This brings to light the fact that everything is moving, everything is changing, and all things move through time whether they want to or not. Where they go is largely up to us. This means you are making decisions on where your business goes daily, but others’ opinions and decisions affect those decisions. Continue reading »

The tanked economy may be old news–and news we’re all tired of listening to–but has turned out to be a boon for meeting planners and those booking incentive travel. Ovation Travel Group predicts that the recent tears-long trend of increased rates will be reversed in 2009, and rates might drop. Ovation recently polled hundreds of hotels through the world, and found that some have already lowered their rates, so the trend may be starting.

With over 400 hotels responding to a survey, Ovation reports that this year hotels have already lowered their 2008 rates by 4.31 percent. The company says that overseas, 35.6 percent of the properties report their rates are down by 11 percent, and another 27 percent have held steady. This makes a total average drop in rates of 4.67 percent.

Here in the United States 37.1 percent of our hotels report reducing their rates by 10.2 percent, which mirrors properties worldwide. However, more of our hotels have maintained the 2008 rates–38 percent of domestic properties did not raise prices in 2009. This makes “Buy American” much easier for the domestic planner who is looking to book incentive groups locally.

Even though financially things are tough around the world, that doesn’t mean that you can’t send people on worldwide travel. If you have properties with which you have great relationships already, they may be willing to reduce rates for especially large bookings. These days everyone is fighting for business, so you might as well take advantage of it–find the hotels that have lowered their rates and reward their good sense with your business.