Corporate Travel Destinations

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?

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.

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.

Ensuring that your meeting or event attendees, or incentive travel winners, have a satisfying, memorable experience during the corporate travel you have planned for them, involves much more than scheduling venues, renting equipment, booking a block of rooms and negotiating prices for airline tickets. Of course, you already know that your job entails much more than that, but many planners sometimes leave out a few details that can make all the difference when it comes to the experience your participants have.

This is particularly true if you are planning corporate travel for folks who may not travel frequently for business or in their personal lives, or who have not previously traveled to this destination. For example, turning them loose without any information about the area might be seen as okay by some, but planners who want to make sure every detail is taken care of and who want to be known for going above and beyond to meet their participants’ needs would never consider doing that. Gathering and distributing information about the destination does not have to take a lot of time and effort, and is sure to be seen as an appealing extra that your attendees will appreciate.

A simple list of attractions, eateries, transportation options and other types of useful information is sure to be greatly appreciated, and it will only take you a short time to find all of this information online.

One of the first casualties of the global recession was travel, especially in the corporate world. The answer to that is finally coming in–not only are most countries and properties clamoring to offer the best deals around, countries that were never considered serious destinations are becoming contenders in the world travel business.

While many groups might continue sending their conferences and meetings to Europe or larger Asian countries, some are looking at Myanmar, Vietnam, the Philippines, and other smaller destinations. Some of these destinations are just starting out in the world market for travel, and are offering the best they can give–including prices–to attract meetings. Continue reading »