However, it also emphasized that the ostentation of former times and the concept of an incentive being little more than a free vacation are gone for good. Companies are wary of reputational damage, and thanks to Twitter and social media, they know that ‘what happens in Vegas no longer stays there’. As a consequence of companies’ concern over their public image, educational briefings, team-building exercises and charitable work are all becoming more popular.


However, the results of the Incentive Research Foundation’s (IRF) Fall Pulse Survey, based on slightly later data than that used by Advito, paints a less optimistic picture of the incentive travel sector, from a largely US perspective, with falls in confidence levels among stakeholders in this industry: Respondents in the September 2012 survey indicated that they were less optimistic and considered the economy as having a more negative impact on their ability to plan and implement incentive travel programs when compared with the results of the IRF’s previous survey in March 2012.


Moreover, 16 percent of the respondents indicated that they anticipated a change from ‘International to Domestic’ incentive travel destinations, with 15 percent saying that they ‘will pick locations closer to home’ with regards to their incentive travel programme destinations. Procurement involvement in the purchasing process for incentive travel also proved to be a significant factor, with 38 percent of respondents indicating that procurement and purchasing involvement will ‘Slightly Increase’ in the coming year, and 13 percent indicating that procurement and purchasing involvement will ‘Significantly Increase’ in 2013.


Finally, regarding budgets, 48 percent of the respondents anticipated budgets for their incentive travel programmes to ‘Remain Unchanged’ during this coming year, while 21 percent indicated that budgets would decrease by some degree in 2013. 31 percent indicated that their budgets for incentive travel programs would slightly increase in the coming year.


Reed Exhibitions | EIBTM Trends Watch Report 2012 24


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