Cruises have always had an air of luxury of extravagance, dating back to when the first cruise lines began to offer elegant vacation options, rather than simply providing seafaring voyages for transportation purposes. While most people still consider a cruise a luxury experience, present day cruises are actually quite cost-effective and convenient for incentive travel packages, meetings at sea, conferences and trade shows, and other corporate events.

Aside from the cost savings and easy of planning that cruises provide, here are ten additional advantages of choosing a cruise for your next event or travel award:

1. Cruises offer personalized, attentive service, which enhances participants’ experience.
2. Cruises offer inclusive packages that assist planners in sticking to the defined travel budget.
3. Cruises provide a fulfilling, exciting travel experience for employees at a variety of income levels.
4. This exciting travel option is highly motivating for staff and encourages increased performance.
5. The self-contained environment makes event planning easy and convenient.
6. Planners can offer their participants multiple destinations with no additional effort.
7. Sharing an exciting travel experience is ideal for teambuilding.
8. Cruises offer all of the luxuries of resort hotels with the added value of foreign destinations.
9. Entertainment options abound, providing participants with plenty of activity options that the planner does not have to organize.
10. A contained environment ensures that more attendees will show up to onboard meetings and events.

Incentive travel planners are well aware of the many reasons they must keep a watchful eye on the costs associated with incentive travel programs. The company paying the travel expenses will naturally require a detailed list of expenditures and will have a budget that you must stay within, as well as greatly appreciating your efforts put towards saving money without losing quality. However, with all of this emphasis placed on how much incentive travel packages will cost the company, it can be easy to overlook the expenses that the participants will incur.

In some cases, this may be an insignificant detail that does not affect the participants’ ability to enjoy their travel award to the fullest, but for some incentive travel winners, the costs involved may prohibit them from taking full advantage of this opportunity – or from participating at all. It is one thing to arrange a luxury vacation for well-compensated executives who can afford to indulge in room service for every meal at high-end resorts, but it is quite another to arrange a satisfying travel package for hardworking salespeople or staff members who may not have high salaries.

Incentive travel planners should keep this in mind when selecting destinations and would do well to do a bit of basic research on area prices to ensure that affordable meals and entertainment options are available.

By its very nature, incentive travel should have an air of luxury and absolutely must be enticing in order for it to function as an incentive. It simply cannot be a run-of-the-mill trip that the potential participants could easily throw together themselves. Incentive travel packages must be memorable, meaningful, perfectly planned and expertly executed.
That being said, incentive travel planners are under increasing pressure to cut costs and deliver travel packages that fit into new, reduced travel budgets. As they struggle to meet the demands of their supervisors or client companies, while staying within budget, incentive travel planners are now constantly looking for ways to lower travel expenses. The trick is to find ways to cut costs without cutting corners.

Here are some ways that travel planners are adapting to the changes that have come with this economic downturn:

1. Opting for all-inclusive incentive cruise
2. Choosing lower-cost domestic and international destinations
3. Opting for lower-cost food, beverage and hotel choices
4. Planning more free time into the travel schedule, as opposed to offering multiple planned activities
5. Reducing the number and cost of pillow gifts, or cutting them out completely

When determining the best way for you to cut costs without cutting corners, keep in mind that a lower-cost destination choice coupled with upscale pillow gifts and luxury amenities will deliver a more memorable, enjoyable trip, as compared to opting for a stripped down travel package at a high-end destination.

Tough economic times and shrinking budgets do not mean that your company must eliminate incentive travel packages. On the contrary, there are many cost-effective packages that will meet your needs and reward your employees for their hard work, without breaking the bank.

For example, companies based in Los Angeles, or other Southern California cities can opt for incentive travel that is a little closer to home and far more cost-effective than extravagant, exotic trips. Two- to four-day incentive cruises that stop in San Diego and popular Mexican ports provide a number of low-cost options for incentive travel. Other options include weekend trips to Solvang or Santa Barbara, or train trips up the coast.

Companies that are based in Seattle, Tacoma or the Greater Puget Sound area also have a wide variety of low-cost incentive travel options. Amtrak offers special train travel packages to the popular town of Leavenworth at certain times of the year and has regularly scheduled service to Vancouver, Canada. Seattle also has a major cruise port with cruise lines offering two- to four-day cruises to Victoria Island and Vancouver, or to stops along the coast to San Francisco, California.

These, of course, are just a few options that are available for these two major business centers, but regardless of where your company is located, there are cost-effective incentive travel packages available that will assist you in showing your appreciation to employees and encourage high productivity, while helping you stay within your allotted travel budget.

Everyone knows that incentive travel is an excellent way to reward employees for increasing sales or meeting goals. It can increase company pride, build and maintain team morale and encourage employees to continue performing at their best. Incentive travel is more cost-effective than handing out raises to show your appreciation to your top performers, and can help companies retain good employees, even when tough economic times may not allow for increases in pay.

But, there is more to incentive travel than just showing your appreciation and building company pride. Incentive travel can mean more to employees than you might know. Depending on their income level and family status, being able to put in extra effort to receive incentive travel may give them travel opportunities they might not otherwise have. By providing opportunities that they might not be able to afford to experience otherwise, you are giving your employees a particularly appealing reward that they are sure to appreciate.

Knowing this, you can enhance incentive travel packages even more by adding little extras that will not cause you to incur significantly higher expenses, but will be meaningful to your employees. For example, you could include a gift certificate for dinner for two in their destination, a gift card to a store where they might purchase things they need for the trip, or tickets to a show or event happening during their stay.

Many business meeting planners have taken steps to locate corporate meetings in centralized locations, which allows participants to attend meetings closer to home. This has come on the heels of pressure to limit the environmental effects of transportation and an increasing need to cut costs wherever possible.

This new consideration of locations is also an important factor in assisting your corporate clients in maintaining a positive image, particularly with everything from meeting locations and travel expenses, to the quality of food being served and additional amenities offered being reported in the news or on various online channels.

Hosting meetings closer to where participants live means using more regional transportation. While train travel and charter buses are two viable options, many clients will require air travel to accommodate tight schedules and busy professionals.

Fortunately, there is a new trend in air travel that makes this option more appealing to higher-end clientele. Major airlines, such as Delta, Northwest, United and American Eagle are now offering premium seating and service on regional flights. First class and business class seating options are no longer reserved solely for mainline flights and are quickly becoming the norm for regional subsidiaries.

This is great news for business meeting planners that cater to clients who prefer premium services, or companies that wish to offer upscale seating as part of their incentive travel packages.

Like any other business, spas have been hit by financial concerns. They have responded by lowering prices, offering half-time treatments, and better deals for groups. All these actions benefit you, the business meeting planner, in lots of different ways.

Booking Groups

Spas have lost a lot of their group business. Meetings have been canceled or rebooked on the internet and luxuries have been cut. Public perception has interfered in spa bookings as well–what blue collar worker wants to bust her tail all day for a failing company while her CEO is very busy being surrounded by candles, small fountains, and new age music as he gets a massage?

This makes it a perfect time to use spa visits as part of your business incentive travel packages. Prices are down and availability is high. Read the rest of this entry »