Previous Page
ART CREDIT
incentive meetings
‘A Really Exciting Inflection Point’
Why Site’s new chief staff officer, Kevin Hinton, thinks this is an especially opportune time for the incentive travel industry.
By Michelle Russell point in that experience [with MPI],” he said,
“I recognized that this was something that I enjoyed doing. I think that the meetings and travel industry, however you define it, is at a really exciting inflection point. And I want to play a role in where we go from here.” Hinton spoke to Convene about his new
job, Site’s role within the incentive travel industry, and the overarching role motiva- tional experiences play in business success.
I
n July, Kevin Hinton joined SmithBuck- lin as chief staff oficer of Site (Society of Incentive Travel Executives) and executive
director of the Site International Foundation, Site’s research arm. Now in its 40th year, Site — which is focused on “connecting motivational experiences with business results” — has more than 2,000 members in 90 countries. Hinton brings 15-plus years of incentive- travel experience — from the hotel side
— to Site. “I went to work with my father at hinton+grusich,” he said, “which was a nation- al sales organization representing indepen- dent luxury hotels mostly in North America.” When the firm was sold to Associated Luxury Hotels International (ALHI), Hinton became ALHI’s executive vice president. Hinton had just finished up a term as
chairman of the MPI International Board when he was named Site’s head. “At some
90 PCMA CONVENE OCTOBER 2013
How optimistic are you about the incentive travel sector of the meetings industry? I think we’re at a critical time to be able to increase our influence as an industry, howev- er you define it, and really increase the impact that our association — and other associations in our space — can have on people that are in our industry. And, there are so many indi- rect things that we affect: all of the program participants and the companies that put on meetings. I think it’s an exciting time. I realize the potential that Site has — not
unlike other associations that have tremen- dous potential to play a critical role in the evolution of a profession and an industry. I love the collaboration that’s happening. The initiative that we’re working on between Site and PCMA Convene is a great example of that. [Editor’s note: Read about this initiative in Behind the Scenes on p. 8.]
Has the incentive sector recovered from the recession? I think there was a disproportionate effect on incentives. No doubt about that — and for the wrong reasons. Business leaders were not able
to properly enunciate why, from a business standpoint, they were going to invest in taking their top hundred performers and guests to an incentive-level type experience, even though there were pure business reasons for it. We single out AIG, but there were hun-
dreds of companies that made similar errors. If somebody at any one of those companies had said, “Hold on a second — maybe we could have cut back on this or that. But let me tell you that the experience at this resort, it was just a small part of the business. It was a reward for people, but the business had already received the benefit and the impact of all the good, hard work that these folks had done. This was a way of celebrating that and also engaging our key business partners.” But we were not doing that type of com-
municating, and so incentive travel was largely curbed. Cash rewards were given, or merchandise — incentive programs just were not being put together for that period of time. And consequently, some businesses didn’t grow, or they recognized that, wow, without that program in place, what were they going to do to retain their top talent? There was a recognition of the importance
of having programs in place. And incentive travel — I mean, it works. Does it work all the time, with everybody? No. You have to know your audience. But the fact of the matter is, there’s a lot of science behind the investment in an incentive program that includes some kind of experience at the end. Where there is room to improve is telling
the story of why this works. And we’re seeing that people are returning — the demand for a lot of our members has gone up, whether