The adverse impact of COVID-19 on the hospitality industry cannot be understated. Among the many subsets of the hospitality industry the MICE sector is perhaps most affected. No company wants to ever take any risks with the health and safety of its employees much less those with stellar performance. As the pandemic spread like wildfires, resulting in curtailed or suspended travel, just about every company suspended or canceled their planned incentive trips for their top-performing employees or customers. Some replaced the planned trips with cash and/or merchandise vouchers while others postponed planned programs in the hope that the virus would come under control in a reasonable amount of time and the programs could be reactivated.
Needless to say, as we now face nearly a year of lockdowns and shuttered services, incentive trips remain on hold for the foreseeable future. While the meeting industry has found a workaround—with adequate measures such as social distancing, reduced attendance, canceling buffet food and beverage services at meetings, etc.—incentive trips remain out of reach for the time being. Organizers of incentive trips are left with the sad reality that social distancing could suck all the energy and joy out of incentive trips. Would it really be a motivational experience if the participants could not stand at the bar and co-mingle freely with their colleagues?
When it comes to incentive travel and the impact of the pandemic, companies have now come to the realization that many of the implications of COVID-19 cut to the heart of what incentive travel is. There is no universal agreement as to when we will be able to travel freely again. Over the next few months, as a number of promising vaccines are rolled out, this situation will become clearer. However, in the meantime, the industry is in an endless holding pattern.
Among complicating factors are the time-sensitive nature of performance awards as a motivating factor, the future viability of key industry partners—chief among them the airlines and hotels—the justified fear of potential participants and others. Corporate event planners feel caught between the proverbial rock and hard place: The executives who constantly ask for the planners’ views as to when incentive trips can be resumed and hard realities of a global pandemic.
It is safe to assume that in the coming months some travel will resume—starting at the local and regional levels followed by cross-border trips. Rolling out effective vaccines on a global level is no easy task, complicated by potential travelers’ anxieties regarding health and safety measures in far-flung destinations.
While group incentive trips may not be coming on the horizon in the near future, the corporations can still adhere to a key core of incentive rewards: Motivation. This can be accomplished with individualized incentives rather than a collective approach. While the synergistic value of incentive trips will be somewhat diminished, the corporation can still foster an environment of recognition and reward among its top performing personnel. Upscale, individual travel, like leisure, will recover faster and it has the inadvertent “advantage” of appealing to the millennials with their pronounced wish for individuality.
While during the pandemic virtual or hybrid events have blossomed, they are not perfect substitutes for sought-after incentive trips. Yet, they can act as stop-gap and interim substitutes for the real thing until incentive trips in their traditional sense can be resumed. In a very short time since travel has been suspended, virtual events have filled a void in bringing qualifiers together in some way and keeping the spirit of cohesion alive within the broader corporate setting. Used effectively, virtual events have the side benefit of acting as “teasers” in maintaining the commitment to performance for future travel rewards.
To sum up, COVID-19 has no chance of killing incentive travel because programs are integral to the core business models of so many organizations. Incentive trips have the unique attribute of generating motivation and performance far greater than the costs associated with planning and delivering one. The synergistic value of a group of ambitious and driven employees spending valuable time together is priceless in contributing to the corporation’s long-term goals. Study after study has proven that incentive trips enrich companies in ways far more enduring than if the participants were given cash or merchandise. Given the value-adds of incentive trips, it is highly unlikely that COVID-19 will adversely affect it as an important motivational tool in the long run.
To plan your future incentive trips or virtual ones, call on professionals at the Maxxus Group for out-of-the-box solutions.