Flying can be a real hassle. Not only can flying be more trouble than it is worth, but it can also be very expensive. When businesses have to factor in the cost of round-trip airfare into their incentive travel budgets, they often find they have few resources available to plan exciting entertainment and dining options for travel participants. Because airfare often requires a large percentage of the travel budget, businesses are often faced with the task of making the remaining funds stretch as much as possible. When planning incentive travel, consider an incentive cruise as a reasonable, affordable, and thrilling option with no flying required.

While participants of an incentive cruise do have to get to port, a number of these ports are located within a five hour drive of many of the major cities. At least 50 percent of the population of the U.S. is within a 5 hour drive of a cruise ship's port. Since a ship charter can cost up to 40 percent less than a land venue, such as a hotel or resort, businesses will not have to worry about making their budgets stretch. Exciting incentive travel can be accomplished without having to pay for expensive airfare or deal with the headache of flying.

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 may find themselves arranging travel packages for a variety of winners, including some with high salaries and others with more moderate incomes. Because of this, planners must ensure that all of their participants will be able to enjoy their travel awards equally, particularly if staff members at different pay rates will be traveling to the same destination at the same time. Fortunately, there is a very simple, convenient way to accomplish thus that is sure to appeal to all of the participants that receive travel awards: cruises.

Incentive cruises are an excellent option for incentive travel and provide an all-inclusive travel package that will allow each of your winners to fully enjoy their travel incentive, regardless of their personal budget. With included meals and snacks, complimentary room service, first-run movies at no charge, use of fitness facilities at no additional cost, free onboard activities, nightly entertainment and duty-free shopping, travelers at all income levels will find incentive travel cruises an appealing, enjoyable experience.

Opting for incentive cruises also provides additional benefits to the incentive travel planner and the company paying for the travel awards. As a cost-effective option that is simple to organize and sure to encourage employees to perform, cruises are an ideal choice when it comes to planning incentive travel.

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.