Incentive Travel the Way to GO!
One of the first and largest groups I brought to Barbados was back in the 70s. Seventy two people in total which included salesmen, their partners, distributors and the company’s senior management. While the firm, Cavalier Caravans, was headquartered in Sweden it had a substantial manufacturing plant in the Eastern English port town of Felixstowe which was at that time growing into one of the largest container ports in the world. The company found itself in a situation where both production and sales were concentrated into particular months and they desperately wanted to try and level the disparity, allowing better control of manufacturing unit costs.
It was easy to identify the month of September, for all sorts of reasons, as being the month that stood out as recording the least number of sales and smallest number of caravans actually being built. We sat down and devised a simple incentive scheme that if each salesperson exceeded their annual sales target which were invoiced in that month, they would ‘win’ a 10 day/9 night holiday, each for two persons to Barbados. To say it was a resounding success is a huge understatement. I quickly learned that travel and experience was a far greater motivation than taxable pay.
When implemented successfully, incentive travel can be a powerful influence of productivity, profitability and loyalty. Hotel and airline choice was critical. We had a very tight budget but the ‘product’ had to be presented as a quality offering with little or no room for errors. It was vitally important that every person who won this coveted prize returned to echo their enjoyment over and over to friends, family, the few non qualifying colleagues and just as vital, competing brands of other caravan manufacturers.
Cavalier already had an excellent reputation for quality in the marketplace, but this gave them a huge competitive advantage. The following year not a single distributor or salesperson that had a choice of brands would ignore the challenge to win ‘their’ holiday in the sun. During their stay at Southern Palms Beach Club, we organized a number of special experiences which included a mini-moke safari, chartering the Jolly Roger and exclusively booking a leading restaurant for the night.
Our tour company in the UK went on to specialise, initially in incentive and motivational travel with a client base that included company’s as diverse at McDonalds and Dutch electronics giant Philips. While the past economic challenges and tax changes have, to a certain degree, stifled this way of rewarding performing employees and key sales personnel, I firmly believe this key niche market is just one of the many ways we can currently grow our arrival numbers.
And it’s still very big business. In fact a leading incentive travel trade association quotes a revenue earning figure of $76.9 billion annually just in the United States alone. Just imagine if we could tap just an additional one percent of that spend with the added bonus that motivational travel is not concentrated in the peak winter months. As the newly formed Barbados Tourism Marketing body finds their new direction, this niche might be one that attracts extra attention.
Barbados Underground 
Oh how we forget!Were there no groups or incentives before 1970?
Why don’t you go and visit someone like Paul Foster and talk to him sometime about the Barbados Board of Tourism in the early days?
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@Goldfeet
Typical of the small minded idiots on here. Someone makes a valid point and some semi educated moron come to put him down.
For the record,nowhere did I read Adrian saying that there were no incentives before 1970. Did you?
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An incentive travel program, whether group or individual, can be an innovative initiative depending on how it is implemented and if the rewards offered are attractive enough to solicit potential visitors to Barbados.
A survey conducted by Incentive Magazine “Travel IQ” in 2014, revealed the Caribbean was the #1 international incentive destination.
“”The Caribbean itself is like a one-stop destination for incentives,” says Heather Licata, director of special events for New York-based Fourth Wall Events, a global meeting and event design, production, and management company. Licata and her associates have organized a number of incentive programs for various clients throughout the Caribbean, including the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, and Grand Cayman.”
Barbados tourism authorities could capitalize on this tourism initiative by involving the hotels that are more appropriate for this venture, and offer the island as a destination where international organizations can reward their employees with individual or group incentive certificates.
For example, Royal Caribbean International offers an Individual Incentive Cruise Certificate Program offering different levels of cruise certificates ranging from the “royal crown diamond” certificate which includes cruise fare and taxes and valid for year round 6 or 7 day cruises, to the cheapest “bronze” certificate, inclusive of cruise fare only.
The Hilton Rose Hall Resort & Spa in Jamaica also offers an incentive program with a food and beverage package designed specifically for incentive guests.
Additionally, March 27, 2015, saw the opening of the Baha Mar in Nassau, Bahamas, which has been called the largest resort complex in the Caribbean. It is a US$3.5B investment where four hotels collectively offer 2,200 guest rooms. The Baha Mar Casino & Hotel = 1,000; Rosewood at Baha Mar = 200; SLS LUX at Baha Mar = 300; and Grand Hyatt Baha Mar offering 700 rooms.
The director of sales and marketing for the Grand Hyatt Baha Mar said she has been working with various meeting and incentive groups that have booked Baha Mar this year, some of whom have groups with 1,500 rooms on peak nights. She explained that the groups “work with just one convention service manager and they can book all their rooms and events with all four properties.”
The U.S Virgin Islands Department of Tourism is also focusing on the group incentive market this year. In March, it debuted the “Procrastination Pays Off” rewards program for meeting and incentive travel planners, encouraging them to book 2015 programs with the territories.
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Bookworm
If you’re claiming that you’re a learned-man, then your education ought to have taught you how to choose your battles sir. You ought to known that for every argument proposed there is an argument to opposed. And whether or not the argument is grounded in fact or fiction; learned or unlearned, the fella above is entitled to express his own sir.
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http://www.todaysxm.com/2011/08/10/seaweed-emits-poisonous-hydrogen-sulfide-beach-closures-possible/
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It would be interesting to know if Barbados has become a destination for sex tourists on the same scale as Morocco. Scratch below the surface; you will be shocked!
http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2013/01/74751/sexual-tourism-in-morocco/
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getting a read of todays advocate the seagassum seems to one act of nature that could run in to the millions of dollars for clean up, right now efforts going on to do a thorough clean up has be met by the stubborn forces of nature to do natures “work”of removing garbage from the sea . Unfortunately that is a price we will have to pay until humans recognized that cleanliness is next to godliness.
here is an article ” Blessing or curse seaweed”
http://www.portasouthjetty.com/news/2011-05-05/Front_Page/Blessing_or_curse.html
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Adrian
Perhaps GOB, BTMI and BHTA should consider looking beyond Bajan shores for some professional advice on incentive/loyalty travel programs.
Suggest they may want to have a look at Canadian company Aimia Inc.
Unlike another saviour from beyond Barbados’ shores, Cahill Energy, Aimia Inc. is a public company, so full disclosure is available to permit due diligence to be conducted.
This is from Aimia’s website, http://aimia.com/en.html
“Aimia Inc. is a data-driven marketing and loyalty analytics company. We provide our clients with the customer insights they need to make smarter business decisions and build relevant, rewarding and long-term one-to-one relationships, evolving the value exchange to the mutual benefit of both our clients and consumers.
With close to 4,000 employees in 20 countries, Aimia partners with groups of companies (coalitions) and individual companies to help generate, collect and analyze customer data and build actionable insights.
Since 1984, Aimia has been a global leader in the travel and hospitality rewards industry. Beginning with Aeroplan, Canada’s premier coalition program, we have evolved into a global leader in loyalty management. Today, we act as a strategic advisor, investor, and service provider to travel hospitality companies around the world including: Delta Air Lines, Etihad, Virgin Australia, Malaysia Airlines, Jet Blue, LAN, KLM, Kingfisher, Kuwait Airlines, China Southern, British Airways in the airline space, Carlson Hotels in the hotel space, Amtrak in the rail space and Avis Budget in the car rental space.
Today, we act as a strategic advisor, investor, and service provider to travel hospitality companies around the world.
Our combination of frontline experience and institutional knowledge of the airline industry is instrumental to our ability to create and articulate value for carriers. We have experience launching a global frequent guest program in 70 countries, 12 languages and eight currencies. Aimia builds and manages proprietary programs using innovative capabilities. Our objective is to build stronger relationships with travelers. The changing loyalty landscape increases the need for hotels and travel operators to differentiate the loyalty value proposition. Whether it’s up scaling the currency, creating one-to-one multichannel interactions, pursuing partnerships and alternative distributions or leveraging technology to improve the ROI of your program, Aimia has in-depth experience to ensure your efforts are building real relationships.
Aimia’s distinctive point of differentiation comes from an understanding of the needs of travelers and challenges of travel providers.”
Financial statements are available through the company’s website or at:
http://www.sedar.com/DisplayProfile.do?lang=EN&issuerType=03&issuerNo=00027127
Aimia has operations in China; so given the cash flow difficulties of GOB, perhaps the Chinese Ambassador to Barbados , Wang Ke, can arrange for the Government of the People’s Republic of China to finance the cost of Aimco’s services.
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@Dompey
Adrian made a valid point and was taken to task by an idiot for something that he never said. This was no opinion.
You are a sanctimonious, verbose fool who is under the mistaken impression that using convoluted phrasing is a sign of intelligence and higher learning.
You are wrong.
You would be better employed checking your grammar and spelling before posting.
You even misspell your nom-de-plume. I feel sure that it should be Dopey?
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‘Unfair’: Leeds school asks for £1,600 to take kids to Barbados
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/main-topics/education/unfair-leeds-school-asks-for-1-600-to-take-kids-to-barbados-1-7300452
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