B2B travel incentives are a fantastic way to motivate a change in behaviour in your customer base, and it’s not hard to see why. Providing recognition to your most loyal customers and thanking them for their role in supporting your brand and organisation by taking them on a once-in-a-lifetime travel experience is sure to reinforce spending patterns and make them customers for life.
However, this kind of change doesn’t come cheap. Budgets in travel incentives, while able to be self-funded through the expected sales growth, can seem like a daunting figure when viewed up-front, especially when considering implementation for the first time.
Luckily, we’re here to save the day with a guide on how to navigate B2B incentive travel budget challenges!
We’ve spoken about DMCs before, but for those not in the know, these are companies based in the location that can provide on-ground knowledge for accommodation, experiences and venues for the trip. This provides authenticity to your travel incentive, but the relevant part here is that they can work to your budget to provide exactly what you’re after at a cost-effective price.
DMCs can also book for you, meaning that you can reduce potential tax payments to be incurred through international purchases at the location. This can reduce the overall spend while ensuring that your trip provides experiences authentic to the location, ensuring that the trip will stay front-of-mind for any guests who attend.
Selecting an affordable destination can reduce the cost of your trip, but that doesn’t mean that you have to give up luxury in the decision. Developing nations like Indonesia, Mexico and Vietnam have all emerged as fantastic destinations for luxurious incentive travel experiences that don’t break the bank, and we’ve got the satisfied guests to prove it!
An additional benefit for selecting a developing nation as your travel destination is that you can ensure that the stay is different to what your guests would experience back at home. By providing unique experiences, your guests are more likely to fondly look back on the opportunity – meaning your brand stays front-of-mind next time they’re in the market to purchase!
Transport costs (beyond initial/return flights) aren’t usually the first thing a business thinks of when planning their travel experience, but they can certainly add up. Buses, hire cars, etc. can all quickly eat up the budget, but by selecting venues and experiences based on their location in relation to your accommodation will allow you to reduce these costs.
The additional perk that comes with this is the ability to select walking tours. This is a far more sustainable option, which depending on the age bracket and demographics your guests fall into may be important, but also allows the guests to get a more intimate experience of the local culture, which will reinforce the trip itself.
Some destinations can provide benefits through tourist grants and partnerships with travel bureaus to sweeten the deal with incentive groups. These can help with cutting down overall costs and also provides on-the-ground knowledge that can be used to build on the authenticity of the stay, providing a fuller cultural experience to the guests and group.
While it may seem like the best move is to cut the budget, this can have the opposite effect that the concept of incentive travel is setting out to achieve. If your trip isn’t good enough or doesn’t provide enough perceived value, it’s entirely possible that the guests will simply choose not to participate rather than engage.
However, by reducing the guest numbers instead of the budget, you can keep a high-value travel incentive while providing an additional benefit – igniting a sense of competition in your guests, pushing the sales achieved up while not needing to sacrifice on the budget itself!
These are just some of the ways you can work around a tight budget – we’ve been providing luxurious and unique travel incentives for Australian and New Zealand clients since 1996, so you can trust that we’ve got the knowledge to make it work on a budget.
If you’re looking into the benefits of B2B incentive travel or trying to make a stiff budget work, reach out today – we can work with you to give your guests the experience of a lifetime!
