Business Tourism Partnership Mission

programme, and are held in highly aspirational locations, making
them motivational events. The defining line through these blurred
boundaries is that participants have to qualify to earn an incentive
reward.
The most popular incentive destinations for groups travelling from
the UK, according to ‘Meetings & Incentive Travel’ magazine’s
‘Trends and Spend Survey 2005’ (published May 2006) were Spain,
France and Italy as short haul destinations and the USA, South
Africa and the United Arab Emirates as long haul destinations. The
2004 Survey found that long haul trips lasted on average just over
4 days, with short haul trips lasting 3 days. For corporations in the
North American market (according to International Conference
Research Inc), the top international incentive destinations in 2005
were, in order: Britain, Italy, Ireland, Spain and France. European
Travel Commission research (2003) among US and Canadian
corporations using incentive travel programmes found that the
average number of participants on international trips outside North
America was 116 with an average duration of 4-5 nights.
Future Trends and Issues
Incentive travel is a well-established sector of business tourism and
for international markets the UK is one of the most popular
destinations.
However, visitor numbers are greatly influenced year-on-year by
the strength of the pound in relation to other currencies and by
issues affecting perceptions of security.
Incentive travel programmes increasingly have an educational
element for the participants. This can involve visits to factories and
businesses in the same industry sector as that of the award
winners, team-building programmes, and a conference-type session
with an award presentation ceremony and announcements of
corporate plans, designed to encourage the incentive winners to
reach future performance targets.
(See also the references to incentive travel in the next section of
this Briefing on ‘Corporate Events and Corporate Hospitality’)
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