The field is growing as more companies begin to understand what incentive travel can do and how it can be applied.
Moreover, there is greater use of travel awards in consumer promotions as well. Indeed, this is where the whole concept of incentives and premiums began, when, in 1851, B.T. Babbitt, a soap manufacturer, printed coupons on the backs of the soap wrappers that consumers could exchange for lithographs. Later, companies buried dishes within the soap boxes to induce people to buy their product. One travel agency, The Happy Traveler, Somerville, NJ, cashed in big on repeating this same concept of exchanging soap wrappers for travel in a huge promotion for Procter & Gamble.
In addition to jobs at incentives companies and travel agencies and as conventions and meetings planners with incentives divisions, there are incentive travel specialists at hotels, cruise lines, airlines, and tourist offices. This field is one where you can literally create your own job because the opportunities to apply incentives are unlimited.
Incentive Houses an Example: Maritz
At Maritz, one of the largest incentive houses, 2,000 of the 5,000 employees are in the travel area alone. Of these 2,000, there are 1,500 who are the incentives professionals within the motivation and travel companies.
Among the incentives professionals are program administration personnel who develop administrative procedures, issue standings reports, send Award Credit checks to participants, and handle all other details of the program; computer programmers and operators who are responsible for sales reports for clients and assist with the program administration; and direct mail specialists who process and mail all communications material and customer service personnel. Incentive travel sales amounts to $300 million out of $600 million in total travel sales.
Occupying a 100-acre complex, Maritz operates five separate divisions of which travel is one. Maritz is a full-scale motivation, communications, research, and training company. Frequently, the different companies work together. Maritz creates incentives with both travel and merchandise awards, coordinates business meetings, and handles all the audiovisuals needed for the program.
All the motivation/incentive programs are sold by the account managers. These people tend to be mature, be in their thirties, and have eight to fifteen years of experience in the business world, though not necessarily in incentives. They need a business or marketing background to best understand how products load a market, how a company is organized, and how to determine what a client's need is all about.
Creative people, who develop programs and do the promotional campaign, come from among travel directors. Maritz maintains sales offices around the country, but nearly all the creative work is done out of its St. Louis headquarters.
Maritz handles only the vary largest corporations, but the incentive trips may range in size from as few as 25 to 50 winners to as many as 5,000 to 10,000. Trips are intricate to plan and coordinate; one trip, for example, involved a succession of bicycle treks through South Africa over a six-month period. Specialists work as a team on a program.
The company has a policy of promotion from within, and, according to the executive, there is a great deal of movement inside. "We want our people to enjoy upward mobility," which can mean within divisions and to other divisions.
Another Example: The Journey masters
There are perhaps 100 smaller incentive companies, which con-sider themselves the boutiques of the industry. The Journey masters, Inc. Salem, MA. is probably one of the most creative incentives houses around. The company's client list is small, but all blue chip-General Electric, Tupperware, General Felt Industries, Toshiba, Mitta, Sherwin-Williams. Yet the staff numbers fewer than two dozen.
"We're massively elite," commented Robert Guerriero, president. "We do things the big guys can't do. We don't do anything less than 100; a typical group for us is about 200."
He described his operations department, with about five people, as "the factory-they create the details of the trip, prepare the costing, work with the hotels and airlines." Two others make up the advertising and sales department. "We do all our own copy, including the letter shop, printing, typesetting, and paste up and creative portions." Freelancers are also employed.
One of the most exciting incentive programs he operated, he recalled, was billed as the "Rally to the Renaissance" and involved a road rally by Mercedes through Italy for Knoll Furniture, a top- of-the-line furniture manufacturer.
Guerriero maintained that it is not necessary to actually know the client's business; but the incentives specialist must know how to familiarize the client with the value of incentives as a marketing tool. "We'll never know their businesses as well as they do. But what we can do is show how they can operate a $100,000 contest and it won't cost them a thing."
The Journey masters believe that a travel incentive needs to have "poetry" and that the company offers "poets of imagination."
Contacts and Sources
The Society of Incentive Travel Executives (SITE) is the main trade organization. SITE conducts excellent training programs and seminars. It also publishes job openings in its newsletter and offers a free, confidential employment service. A membership directory is available free to members and for a fee to nonmembers.
Society of Incentive Travel Executives (SITE),
271 Madison Ave.,
Ste. 904,
New York, NY 10016-1001,
Tel: 212-889-9340.
Some excellent trade publications that provide leads and contacts include:
- Incentive
- Corporate & Incentive Travel
- Corporate Meetings & Incentives
- Meetings & Conventions
- Successful Meetings
