IRF Survey: Incentive Industry Trending Upward

November 21, 2014

The latest data from the Incentive Research Foundation (IRF) confirms that the incentive industry’s recovery is not only sustaining but also accelerating, as it examined core areas of impact such as budgets/purchasing, the national economy, destinations/ accommodations and program elements.

In its bi-annual Pulse surveys, the IRF asks motivation industry professionals about trends in incentive programs, with its latest findings indicating that things have stabilized compared to prior survey periods, establishing a strong positive upward trend for each of the core elements beginning in July 2009 and continuing through May 2014.

Notable highlights:

The Economy
Sixty-seven percent of incentive travel program owners and 48 percent of merchandise/gift card program owners surveyed indicate they continue to be optimistic and feel the economy is having more of a positive impact on their ability to plan programs.

Budgets/Purchasing
47 percent of respondents anticipate budgets for incentive travel programs will “moderately increase” this coming year; 37 percent indicate that travel program budgets will remain unchanged.

For merchandise/noncash programs, 49 percent expect budgets will remain unchanged, while 46 percent say budgets will increase to some degree.

A majority of respondents (52 percent) say the involvement of Procurement and Purchasing in travel incentive program decision-making will remain unchanged, but 32 percent indicate that this involvement will “moderately increase” and 12 percent say it will “significantly increase” in the coming year.

Destinations & Accommodations
Many respondents (46 percent) anticipate no change with respect to destinations for incentive travel programs in the coming year, but 15 percent say there will be a shift from domestic programs to more international programs.
The top destination for incentive travel programs is the Caribbean (47 percent), followed by North America (43 percent) and Europe (34 percent).

Twenty-six percent of respondents say there will be no change to “all inclusive” pricing options for the accommodations portion of incentive travel programs in the coming year, while 14 percent anticipate some change to this policy.

Program Elements

The most popular types of merchandise for incentive programs are electronics (43 percent), open-loop cards (40 percent) and jewelry/watches (34 percent).
Nearly three-quarters of respondents (74 percent) indicate they use a points-based system for their merchandise/noncash incentive programs.
Just under half of respondents (46 percent) indicate they use social media tools/techniques to enhance their incentive programs.
37 percent indicate they integrate corporate social responsibility and gaming elements into their programs.

The survey was conducted July 21 through August 6 with participants falling into three basic categories:

Corporate (Buyers, Planners, Sales, HR)
Supplier (Hotels, Airlines, DMCs, Merchandise)
Third Party (Incentive Company, Travel Agency, Consultant)

For the full story, go to http://theirf.org/.6124977.html.