How To Organise an Incentive Travel Trip
By Ellena Wilson
Our Sony incentive winners at Victoria Falls
Planning an incentive travel trip can feel like navigating a minefield. Logistics can quickly spiral if you’re trying to balance budgets, dietary requirements and flight delays. So, we’ve put this blog together and broken the process down, so you know exactly where to start.
What is a Group Travel Incentive?
An incentive trip is a travel experience designed by companies to reward, celebrate, or motivate top performers, teams or key partners and clients. The best company trips will focus on shared experiences, networking, organic culture-building away from the office and remote working. Unlike corporate retreats, which tend to focus more on strategy, meetings and team building, incentive trips are for celebration. Bespoke activities create a once-in-a-lifetime trip that fosters company loyalty and shows that they are valued for all their work.
1. Establish KIPs and Guest List
Before you celebrate, you need to organise. We recommend beginning by establishing your business KPIs. Who are you rewarding and why? Are you rewarding your top sales representatives, highest performers, or the most loyal employees? Once you know who may be attending the trip, decide whether they will have a guest or if it’s just individuals in the company.
2. Build Your Budget
Set a realistic per-head budget that goes beyond just flights and build in extra room for currency exchange rates, local taxes, and customised gifting. Custom gifting may seem scary when working to a tighter budget, but it is a highly effective way to make your event more memorable and elevate the entire experience.
When planning budgets for your company’s incentive trip, here are a few things to think about:
- Transfers: Think about the transfers to and from airports, activities, hotels, etc.
- Accommodation: How many rooms will you need, what level of accommodation – hotels or houses, etc
- Activities and excursions: What activities will the group take part in? Will you visit a nearby island?
- Travel insurance: Get quotes as everyone’s travel insurance will be different due to existing health conditions.
- The Flair: Custom Gifting like personalised water bottles or luggage tags.
- A Contingency fund: Typically, 10%- 20% of your budget for any last-minute or unexpected costs.
There are more factors to include in your budget than the above, and it can be very overwhelming to plan your budget for your group incentive trip. At Red Blaze, we’ve been organising incentive trip budgets for over two decades. We have longstanding global venue partnerships that can unlock exclusive rates. Enquire with our team today to assist with planning your programme.
3. Make Your Intentions Clear
After you have created an itemised budget, you will come to discover that a “one-size-fits-all” approach does not always work for employee incentive trips and that going in with a clear intention is the key. What makes a business so incredible is the difference from person to person, their interests, attributes, and likes and dislikes. Half your group may be more interested in a private spa treatment followed by a guided tour. Whereas the other half may want to prioritise more physically intense activities like mountain-biking or skiing.
If they’re doing a workshop, incorporating fun certifications of skills learnt is a great way to keep people engaged with the activity. If it’s an activity selection like a cocktail or baking class, a Great British Bake-Off style can be a fun way to get colleagues bonding through the spirit of competition. Set out your planning stage with intention behind every decision, as it can be a massive reflection of your business. When you plan with intention, you optimise your resources.
Discover Your Destination
Your intention is prevalent even down to what destination you choose. We have plenty of destination suggestions on our blog. When choosing the destination, it helps to know what the weather will be like when the group is there, as some activities will not be accessible if it’s too hot or too cold. Align the location with the season (Montenegro for summer, or Whistler for a festive Winter cabin experience) and with any Holidays or events that are important to your guests or company.
When sourcing your destination, it’s best to refer to your budget, as choosing an expensive location like Japan, New York, or Monaco will be out of reach and will reduce your spending in other areas, such as activities, especially if you’re booking the company incentive trip yourself. You will not be offered the same discounts as a travel agency such as Red Blaze.
Whilst travelling the world is incredible, so is your safety. Destination research is not all about the incredible sights to see, but also about the local laws, restrictions, cultural attitudes and legal protections. You must take your time when choosing a destination that will suit your group in its entirety. The ILGA travel maps are a government-commended resource and a great visual way to see where you and your employees will be safe.
Case Study: Vancouver & Whistler
The Objective? A January incentive trip that combines premium accommodation along with an iconic destination. The Solution? Vancouver and Whistler!
A dual-location incentive that delivered an unforgettable winter experience combined with a balance of celebration, discovery and relaxation. The team flew from the UK to Vancouver, and the itinerary sought a balance of business, culture and seasonal experiences. After the team had completed a few days in Vancouver, they were excited for Whistler and needed a good send-off for the first half of the incentive. The itinerary had an engaging, guided orientation tour to see even more of Vancouver and to provide time to explore the city and shop at their own pace.
Then the team travelled across the famous Sea-to-Sky highway, which alone was a sightseeing experience: fjords, waterfalls and mountain landscapes set the tone for the adventure. Upon our arrival in Whistler, whether they wanted to ski, zip-trek through the ancient forest, a snow limo adventure, a dog sledging experience, relaxing spa time or the opportunity to tackle the Olympic bobsleigh, Red Blaze delivered. Read more about our Incentive Trip to Canada.
Top Tip: Choose a location where you are confident in local knowledge of permits, parking, restrictions, AV companies, and so much more.
1. Incorporating your CSR
Our favourite incentives to organise are elevated by the intention to give back to local communities and charities. To do so, we recommend considering a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activity. Our CSR options are the perfect way to team build and make the most positive, lasting impact.
2. Design your Personalised Itinerary
After considering your budget, intention and location, you must now consider every detail of your itinerary. We always recommend a multiple-choice itinerary, especially if you have a multi-generational group. To personalise the itinerary and continue with every special detail, create activity vouchers. This individualisation helps to make the selection process far more engaging for your guests. For example, A ‘Restoration path’ could be for your guest who would rather go to the spa or the historic baths.
With such high-impact activities on your itinerary, you must ensure a detailed risk assessment that abides by all guidelines and is the safest group travel incentive possible. It is imperative that, as the event organiser, you are emergency first-aid trained, in preparation for any eventualities. At Red Blaze, we all have our EFAW certification, so when we’re on-site, we are delivering the safest and thus best group travel incentive possible.
When designing your group travel itinerary, it is very important to communicate every time slot, such as wake-up times, mealtimes, or meet times for activities. A range of wake-up times is best, and this should always be included for the guest to know when their activity starts, as it may influence which programme they choose, especially if a late gala or awards evening took place the night before. Your guest may prefer to relax after a long and engaging evening the night before, so be sure to keep this in mind when planning your incentive programme.
3. Begin The Company Anticipation
When organising your group travel incentive, promoting this exclusive event to your company, winners, or clients may seem like a lacklustre effort, but instead it brings your trip to a whole new level. By building a customised marketing campaign like ‘(Your Company) Takeover Montenegro’, with regular teaser emails and countdown videos, your incentive trip becomes the most motivational date on the company’s calendar. It inspires your company to continue working as hard as they have been and truly build the excitement.
4. On Site Execution
The budget and itinerary are not what makes your incentive travel a luxurious experience; it is the on-site support. When the winners, partners, clients or employees arrive, their only job is to enjoy themselves. By having a hospitality desk in the hotel lobby or allowing an on-site event manager to support any on-the-ground tasks, your guests will experience a high level of catered care.
The hospitality desk benefits:
- Someone will remain on-site 24/7 for any issues with arrivals, departures, flights and transfers.
- A designated space in the hotel lobby to not disturb any other hotel guests but also acts as a specialised designated help spot.
- Guests can collect their keys from your desk to avoid long queues in hotel reception.
- A designated meet spot for any excursions (especially helpful when you have a multiple-choice itinerary where activity minibuses can leave at multiple different times!)
Case Study: Marrakech Incentive
The Objective? A group of 15 salespersons wanting to enjoy a long weekend overseas with plentiful activities and experiences. The Solution? Marrakech!
We chose Marrakech as the destination, with its beautiful 11th-14th century architecture; every ceiling, painting or even doorway was something to marvel at. The dining experience was very diverse, contrasting with UK dining culture, with each meal centred around communal eating that truly immerses you in its food, especially as the process is relaxed with no time frame. Dining in Marrakech is the perfect group travel incentive as togetherness is grounded in Moroccan culture.
It began with a delicious breakfast at the hotel before a private half-day tour around Marrakech. The specialised tour gave the group answers to whatever questions they had, with ultimate flexibility. The tour included beautiful destinations like Majorelle Gardens, 14th-century Ben Youssef Madrasa, 19th-century Dar Menebhi Palace and the famous Jemaa El Fnaa Square. After the morning tour, the group had a specialised lunch in the heart of the Medina of Marrakech. Once the group were ready to return to the hotel, they had a few hours to freshen up before their dinner in the Agafay Desert, followed by a sunset camel ride. This was just one of three days (4 including travel days), with the overall trip matching the requirements of the young group being action-packed and high energy.
We pride ourselves on our hospitality and deliver on-site support you can always rely on. Once our clients use our on-site support, they always come back thanks to the on-the-ground assistance, supplier and venue liaison, expert risk management and ability to provide unique experiences. But it’s not just us. We use our trusted local partners in every region across the globe to help elevate the local and cultural experience. Leveraging our local partners, we can secure favourable rates, uncover unknown experiences, and have easy translation and communication in local languages.
Our connections allow us to save money in aspects like dining, accommodation and travel so we can deliver more 5-star events for your group travel incentive. It’s the ‘hidden’ savings that truly matter. With itemised budgets, you’ll know where everything is going.
If you are booking a weekend away for 4 people, try organising this solo. If you are planning an actual group incentive programme for your employees, using Red Blaze will cost you less stress and money than trying to book it yourself, while saving you 100+ hours of planning time. If you’ve finished this blog and are still unsure whether group incentive travel is for you, or you’re torn between a corporate retreat and an incentive trip, we have broken down the differences in our previous blog post.
When you’re wondering ‘How to Organise an Incentive Trip’, Red Blaze has extensive experience delivering exceptional travel incentive programmes. With our global network, expertise and connections, enlist the agency you can trust to deliver unforgettable company incentive trips, whether it’s 5 or 500 people.
