Photograph by Romolo Tavani for Adobe Stock
While most incentive program owners believe incentive travel is beneficial for sales growth, engagement and retention, few are confident in their ability to demonstrate that success with metrics and key performance indicators, according to the Incentive Research Foundation’s latest study, Measuring Incentive Travel Program Effectiveness.
The study of 114 respondents, including 56 incentive program owners and 58 third-party providers, reveals how incentive professionals measure the effectiveness and business impact of incentive travel programs, where the biggest gaps exist, and what is needed to strengthen measurement practices across the incentives industry.
“For an industry that has evolved in so many ways, there is still a surprising lack of consistent measurement,” said IRF president Stephanie Harris. “Efforts still tend to focus more on attendee satisfaction and event execution, rather than on business performance or long-term behavioral change… which can leave programs vulnerable to scrutiny from finance and procurement stakeholders.”
Key takeaways
Among the study's findings:
- The vast majority (85 percent) of program owners polled rated the impact of their incentive travel programs on business objectives as good or excellent, but only 4 percent were very confident that their approach accurately isolates the impact of their programs.
- Measurement tends to focus on attendee experience and event design over business impact.
- Program owners feel that their internal stakeholders, especially senior leadership, value their programs, finance/ procurement professionals are seen as much less supportive.
- Fewer than one in four program owners track return on investment or the cost-benefit analysis to evaluate the effectiveness of their programs.
- Nearly half of those surveyed were uncertain how to best measure the outcomes of their incentive travel programs.
- Third parties place a greater emphasis on measurement approaches that justify program investment (71 percent) and evaluate business impact (60 percent) than their corporate counterparts do, and they are more likely to measure ROI than program owners.
More incentive travel trends can be found in the latest Northstar/Cvent Incentive PULSE Survey.