Way more than a paid holiday in the sun
PÁDRAIC GILLIGAN , CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER , SITE , ON THE TRANSFORMATIONAL IMPACT OF INCENTIVE TRAVEL
I n December 1973 , during a meeting of 11 attendees at the Americana Hotel ( now the Westin on Times Square ), the Society of Incentive Travel Executives ( SITE ) was formed with Anne Wold-Graham as its first president .
In February 2023 the association returned to New York City bringing over 800 incentive travel professionals from all over the world to celebrate 50 years of incentive travel excellence .
In the intervening years it changed the meaning of its acronym twice ( first Society of Incentive & Travel Executives and then Society for Incentive Travel Excellence ), it altered its logo a few times and , with five presidents serving twoyear terms , was led by 45 presidents , 15 women and 30 men .
But one thing did not change : SITE ’ s resolute and firm focus on incentive travel as a business management tool , capable of transforming individuals , companies and the destinations they
Pádraic Gilligan
visit . It is good to remind ourselves of this .
When we link incentive travel and business management we provide the correct and necessary interpretative context . Incentive travel and business management are inextricably linked , the former working as a direct consequence of the latter .
And despite the use of the word ‘ travel ’ in its descriptor , incentive travel is fundamentally , and primarily , a business tool , not a tourism niche .
This simple fact often gets lost and it ’ s easy to see why .
“ Incentive travel and business management are inextricably linked , the former working as a direct consequence of the latter .”
Firstly , incentive travel is often claimed and measured as tourism revenue by DMOs , rather than inward investment by FDI agencies .
Secondly , companies tend to budget for it under business travel rather than HR or sales .
Thirdly , the ‘ incentive travel industry ’ is predominantly comprised of supply chain players , not corporate end users .
There ’ s nothing ‘ wrong ’ with the practices listed above – that ’ s just the way things have evolved – but it does underline the importance of organisations like SITE that place the emphasis where it needs to be placed : on incentive travel as a business tool .
But SITE goes further , and claims that incentive travel is capable of transforming individuals , companies and the destinations they visit .
A step too far ? No , not at all , but we may need to be more intentional in our planning to really ignite the transformation . When incentive travel experiences take qualifiers where they ’ d never go on their own dollar – both physically and emotionally – then transformation is possible . That ’ s when you get into ‘ travel as brutality ’ ( Cesare Pavese ) or Mark Twain ’ s ‘ travel as the enemy of bigotry ’.
Likewise , when companies invest in creating truly transformational trips , they foster ever deeper connections with their people , build unbreakable bonds between qualifiers and leadership , talk and walk their culture .
Destinations are transformed too . Purposeful , intentional destination selection will provide for legacy building with the impact of the incentive trip extending way beyond mere financial contribution , to include knowledge transfer , support for social enterprises etc .
So let ’ s salute SITE as it starts to celebrate its golden jubilee and thank it , and organisations like it , for reminding us that incentive travel is way more than a paid holiday in the sun . n
50 / CONFERENCE & MEETINGS WORLD / ISSUE 123