Incentives
The Gen Z surprise package
DOES GEN Z REALLY NOT CARE ABOUT INCENTIVE TRAVEL, ASKS PÁDRAIC GILLIGAN, HEAD OF RESEARCH AND CONSULTANCY, AT THE SOCIETY FOR INCENTIVE TRAVEL EXCELLENCE( SITE)? THE DATA, HE EXPLAINS, HAS SOME SURPRISES
O ver my years in the incentive
travel industry, I must have had many debates with fellow Europeans about whether an industry built on strictly meritocratic principles could ever be truly at ease with itself in a European context. The Christian social democratic foundations of most European societies sit uneasily beside a reward structure that, by design, produces an elite – the famed Presidents ' Club that flies Business Class and stays in suites at the Four Seasons.
In recent years that debate has been overtaken by another, not based on whether you ' re American or European, but whether you ' re 25 or 55 – Gen Z or Gen X. Practitioners started to notice certain patterns both in qualification for incentive programmes and in uptake of trips. Were these patterns random anomalies? Were they consistent across different industry verticals? Was Gen Z not really‘ into’ incentive travel rewards?
SITE and Maritz turned speculation into a research project in Spring 2026 and surveyed 1,000 qualifiers across three demographic categories: Gen Z, Millennials( Gen Y), and Gen X / Boomers. The results were illuminating and, if you ' re a programme designer, deeply actionable.
This was not a poll of planners and buyers guessing what their qualifiers want. The screener required respondents to have had a documented opportunity within the last three years to earn a group or individual travel experience through their employer. These are actual qualifiers – people with skin in the game.
The headline finding will, perhaps, surprise those who ' ve been confidently pronouncing incentive travel dead
Above:
Pádraic Gilligan among younger workers: travel remains Gen Z ' s single most motivating reward type, ahead of cash, gift cards, merchandise, and everything else on offer. The data shows that Gen Z’ s ceiling of enthusiasm is lower than it is for older generations – not the floor, the ceiling. They’ re engaged. They’ re just not quite as swept away. Low cost carriers, at least in Europe, ensured that!
Here ' s where it gets genuinely interesting. Despite that lower ceiling, Gen Z respondents are actually earning more trips than their older colleagues. They are qualifying at higher rates, winning more often, and attending when they win – 98 % attendance among earners, consistent across all generations. The problem, such as it is, is not performance or effort. It is emotional resonance. Gen Z wins the trip and then feels slightly less transformed by it than a Gen X winner does. Which is both a smaller problem than the doomsayers have claimed, but a more specific one.
The data points toward why. When asked what they want from a group travel experience, Gen Z ' s top preference is free time on their own. For every other generation, it ' s group dinners, events, and entertainment. That is not a minor preference gap, it’ s a fundamental difference in what the experience means.
And the single most powerful design lever available to programme operators? Guest flexibility, ie, whether a winner can bring whoever they choose, fully included. When that element is present, impact scores across all 11 effectiveness measures reach their highest levels, for every generation.
The incentive travel industry has spent years asking whether Gen Z cares. The more useful question, it turns out, is whether programme design has kept pace with how Gen Z experiences the world. The SITE / Maritz data suggests the answer is no – and that closing that gap is entirely within reach. n
n Read the full research on SITEGlobal
ISSUE 144 / CONFERENCE & MEETINGS WORLD / 53