Mark, a former LinkedIn sales director who asked not to use his real name, is a frequent flyer in the world of business incentive travel, in which companies motivate employees to crush their sales goals with the promise of stays at all time paid in luxury hotels and in the tourist experiences of dry. He qualified for seven or eight of these trips assigned to the best artists of the company, including one for the Four Seasons Resort Peninsula Papagayo in Costa Rica and another at Apurva Kempinski in Bali. “In a sense, my wife was in ruins for me, because now we have done so many of these trips that we know that these places exist,” he says.
His company generally acquires the entire hotel – often four seasons – for thousands of best artists, who are each invited to bring with them the only person they believe has contributed more to their success. (Mark, an intelligent man, generally brings his wife.) While there are usually a few hours of encounters or interviews one morning, the rest is real, genuine: Mark remembers being skeptical on a “white party” on the beach in Costa Rica before it ends up transforming themselves into a huge rave, with all those who cover their face in neon Paint and dancing until the small hours. “It was probably one of the funniest parties I have ever participated in,” he says.
The reward journey or corporate incentives is a common motivational tool in sales work focused, in particular in financial, insurance, pharmaceutical and cars industries. (Multilivelo marketing experts also love them.) It is also a pillar of large technological companies such as Microsoft and Salesforce, the latter of which has hosted Katy Perry for a private performance on the journey of the 2022 club at the Mauna Lani of Hawaii, an Auberge resort.
A 2014 report of the non -profit Federation for Incentivized Research He showed that US companies had spent over $ 22 billion a year for incentive trips and 46 percent of the companies interviewed was based on it as a reward for the best artists, with the sales programs that use it the most. (A 2022 The follow-up study has correctly foreseen the expenditure for incentives grown substantially throughout the line.) In recent years, while the world has been reopened after the peak of pandemic and tourism to the stars, these travels have become increasingly opulent and overcome, with the companies that come true to escape each other with five-star extravagance. destination wedding—If that.
“After Covidid, things went crazy,” says Sean Hoff, the founder of Partner monikerA company’s planning planning agency based in Toronto. The companies that once brought the best employees to nearby places such as New York City or Miami were suddenly asking him to plan excursions to Asia or the Middle East. Many of the Hoff customers are real estate developers or brokers based in Canada and, while the market was boom: “It almost became a mini rush to the armaments, in which several manufacturers were trying to compete for those who could offer the most incredible journey,” he says.
While companies generally spend between $ 4,000 and $ 6,000 per participant, the most sumptuous travel of the moniker can cost up to $ 25,000 each. A particularly decadent journey to Paris for a group of real estate brokers has included a stay at the Hôtel Plaza Aténée, the hot point of the fashion industry once favored by Elizabeth Taylor, Jackie or and Grace Kelly where the rooms go for over $ 1,500 per night. The participants were slammed around the city of Light in the 1960s Citröen CV2S; The activities included a tour behind the shift of the Louvre, hosted by the curator of the head, and a private meal at Le Jules Verne, the two -star restaurant of Michelin inside the Eiffel Tower.