Tag Archives: spending on incentives by TARP recipients

Incentive Travel: It’s time to Re-engineer the Sales Incentive Trip

Incentive Travel: Building a Better Sales Incentive Trip

I have made no secret about the fact that I feel the traditional way of approaching incentive travel is flawed. I have previously expressed my concerns:

Recent Fallout in the Incentive Travel Industry

The economic crisis and its aftermath are the perfect opportunity for companies to re-think and re-engineer their incentive travel initiatives. With a bit of creativity and by adding another day to your itinerary, it is possible to make sales incentive trips more meaningful.

Some of the companies that were severely criticized by the media for excessive spending on incentive travel would have fared better if their itinerary had been more balanced. By all means stay at a beautiful resort and building in some R & R. Your team has worked hard and they have earned it. Rather than making incentive travel all about pampering and self-indulgence, use your incentive trip to also:

 

  • give back to the community
  • develop your team
  • learn more about the places from where you obtain your supplies and the people to whom you sell your products

The Shape of the New Sales Incentive Trip

Some companies have already discovered there is a better way to build a foreign or local corporate incentive programme. So, what do re-engineered sales incentive trips look like?

Here are some experiences that you can build into your incentive trips to expose your team to the local culture and history of your incentive travel destination:

Give Back to the Community

Give your team an opportunity to become involved in a charity event or projects to give back to the community. Some of these examples would be the perfect focus of a team building activity in preparation for your trip. You could involve your entire team, not just the top performers who will be making the trip.

  • Raising funds to purchase computers, books and other school supplies and delivering them to a local school
  • Raising funds and purchasing shoes to be distributed at schools in low income areas
  • Sewing school uniforms and delivering them to local families
  • A cooking event to provide food for homeless people or low income families
  • Toy assembly
  • Painting and repairs of schools, homes, and community facilities
  • Construction projects
  • Funding and building a park
  • Raising funds for a one day dental or eye clinic
  • Book drives for a local library
  • Planting or harvesting crops
  • Digging a well

  • Sharing a meal and some activities with a local family and their neighbours
  • Raising funds for emergency shelter kits and delivering them
  • Involving your company in shoebox assembly and having your top performers help distribute them during their incentive trip

If employees are allowed to bring their entire family with them on your sales incentive trip, here is some inspiration from what a visitor to Jamaica did with her family during a Spring break vacation:

Pick up New Strategies & Ideas to Help you Improve Your Business

Then, consider adding the following elements to your incentive trips.

  1. Business Team Building Simulations (you may as well take advantage of the fact that you have the team together
  2. Scouting trips to uncover best practices in other companies from your industry and with respect to product lines and services
  3. Visits and tours of the offices and factories of your foreign suppliers, subsidiaries and branches
  4. Factory and service tours
  5. Reconnaissance missions to local shopping centres to spot emerging technology and produce innovations so that your company can stay “ahead of the curve”

A race style event can help you add the fun factor to your incentive travel itinerary and incorporate elements 3 – 6.

About Reconnaissance Missions: I was exposed to the following products and services during trips to Asia LONG before they were introduced in North America

  • USB Drives (Malaysia)
  • Jumbotron Billboards on City Streets (Malaysia & Singapore)
  • Internet Cafes (Singapore)
  • Vending Machines on Street Corners for Just about Any Product (Japan)
  • Games on Cell Phones (Japan)
  • Nail, Manicure, and Pedicure Salons (Malaysia)
  • Reflexology Studios (Malaysia)
  • Upscale Massage Parlours in Shopping Malls (Singapore)

How to Fit it All in

Here is are some possible itineraries for pulling it all together:

Option 1: Incentive Travel with Business Field Trip & Community Project (3 Nights)

  • Day 1: AM Early Arrival, Group Check-in, Luggage Transfer to Room, City Tour (Before it’s too Hot), Lunch, Free Time, Afternoon Tea, Orientation, Free Time, Late Dinner
  • Day 2: AM Free Time
  • Day 2: PM Visit to Cultural or Historical Site, Free Time, Themed Cultural Dinner & Entertainment
  • Day 3: Charity Event or Involvement in Community Project
  • Day 4: AM Choice of Free Time or Optional Recreational Activities
  • Day 4: PM Field Trip (Factory/Service Centre Tour or Visit to Local Company in Industry), Gala, Late Night Departure

Option 2: Incentive Travel with Team Building (4 Nights)

  • Day 1: AM Early Arrival, Group Check-in, Luggage Transfer to Room, City Tour (Before it’s too Hot), Lunch, Free Time, Afternoon Tea, Orientation, Free Time, Late Dinner
  • Day 2: AM Free Time
  • Day 2: PM Visit to Cultural or Historical Site, Free Time, Themed Cultural Dinner & Entertainment
  • Day 3: Business Team Building Simulation
  • Day 4: Business Team Building Simulation
  • Day 5: AM Choice of Free Time or Optional Recreational Activities
  • Day 5: PM Shopping, Late Departure

Quick Tip: Companies can fit an extra 2 days of activities into incentive trips and build in enough time for relexation without exploding their budgets. How? Merely arramge to arrive early in the morning on the first day and leave late on the last day.

For Your Next Sales Incentive Trip

Rather than shelving your incentive travel programme, why not “think outside the box” and re-engineer it. If your budget is down, have your sales incentive trip closer to home or substitute with a corporate event. If you’re having a good year, grab some of the bargains that are still available at many hotels and resorts due to the economy.

By locking in your plans for 2010 – 2012, you can take advantage of the generous attrition clauses that many hotels are now offering.

Finally and most important of all, leave the resort, discover what is unique about the history and culture of each destination and provide your team with an opportunity to give back to the community.

Examples of Team Building that Combines Giving back to the Community with Picking up new Business Strategies

Real Business Cases:

Your team will benefit from this change that is long overdue. Your company could gain positive media coverage rather than risking criticism through a more traditional approach to incentive travel. You’ll also give your team the opportunity to finally enjoy the benefits that travel has to offer.

Anne Thornley-Brown is the President of Toronto based Executive Oasis International, a business consulting firm that helps organizations succeed even in the midst of turbulence. They offer incentive travel in a number of featured destinations including Canada, Jamaica, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Oman, Egypt, Singapore, Japan, and Malaysia

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Incentive Travel: Reversing the AIG Effect

Incentive Travel & Event Planning: The AIG Effect - What Caused it & How Do we Reverse it?

by Anne Thornley-Brown, President, Executive Oasis International

It’s been almost a full year since my article “Should companies cancel incentive travel during a recession?” was printed in Incentive Magazine. In view of more hotel closures or bankruptcies that have recently been announced in Las Vegas, it’s  to re-visit this issue.

These issues are vital and have a direct impact on the economy. Please tweet about this article, link to it, reprint it, Stumble Upon it, and share it with every executive you know. Please also share the other articles and resources that I have listed. Please add your comments and join the conversation in the Q & A section on LinkedIn.

As we all know, a dramatic chain of events has had a devastating impact on the business travel, hospitality and team building industries.

What in the world were they thinking?

At least Morgan Stanley took the high road.

Morgan Stanley Won’t Entertain Clients at Its PGA Tour Event

We all know, what happened next.

The Reaction

Some of my colleagues blame statements like this by Obama for the problems that followed:

I see it differently. I agree with my colleagues that there is an important role for sales incentive trips, luxury corporate events, and recreational events for teams. However, I think that Obama definitely “hit the mark” when he said that the companies that accepted the TARP bailouts had no business planning lavish trips and corporate events. I believe that Obama, other lawmakers, and the media were justified in their comments and that they should not be blamed for the troubles that have plagued our industry. In fact, I have been sounding the alarm for years about:

  • companies behave as if they are country clubs and recreational centres rather than businesses
  • companies that opt for strictly recreational events as placebos and pacifiers rather than bonafide business team building to get to the root of the problem and generate solutions when they are having trouble
  • companies trying to pass off entertainment and recreation as “team building”

It’s a matter of remembering why we are in business, balance and priorities. I have been cautioning that an eventual backlash would come and we would see severe cutbacks in this sector. This is one time I wish I was wrong. The scenario that has unfolded is even worse than what I predicted.

The White House made its support for business travel clear:

So it is hard to understand the way in which some companies with a solid bottom line have responded to the criticism of AIG and other TARP fund reciplients. In a knee-jerk overreaction, even companies that are doing well and that had earned the right to reward their people have hit the panic button & cancelled incentive travel and retreats.

One of the most mind-boggling decisions in recent months was AXA’s decision to cancel its overseas incentive travel programme for the next 2 years in the same week that it received recogniition for its outstanding performance. Despite solid performance:

Axa Life head of events Patti Heaven, says: “From the perception of the greater general public, financial institutions are viewed very much in the same way as banks, which are not enjoying good media coverage. To host overseas incentives together with big production conferences in this global economic climate would create the wrong image. This would be insensitive and could potentially be interpreted as a lack of respect for individuals that have been made redundant.”

Sorry, I don’t get it. It certainly sounds like AXA events were WAY over the top and needed to be scaled back:

Heaven’s first foray into the events world was taking a group of 60 plus partners overnight to a hotel down the road. It was so successful that in the following years the event was held in Amsterdam, then Switzerland, Monte Carlo, Mauritius, the US and Bangkok.

“They just kept getting bigger, and more frequent,” says Heaven. ” And now there’s all kinds of different events every year, from conferences to product launches to overseas sales incentives.”

Events run by Heaven have always had an edge of excitement. She once found herself in trouble with Florida police after a mix-up with
passports as ID at a Miami nightclub. “I grovelled so much I made Uriah Heep look like Osama Bin Laden,” she says. “They loved it. Everything was fine then.”

Other stand-out events – but this time for the right reasons – include a recent incentive to Venice where the group had a private tour and recital at St Mark’s Basilica. “The tour was divine, although it was 35degC and we were all in black tie – tourists were taking photos of us,” she recalls.

“But the recital was electric. The room was dark except for candles. The music was extremely atmospheric. It was an amazing experience – it reduced some grown men to tears.”

Patti, what in the world were you thinking? A backlash to this type of excess was inevitable. However, to go from one extreme to the other – overkill to cutting incentive travel completely is a clear case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It makes absolutely no sense.

If anybody reading this is in touch with AXA executives or Patti Heaven, please share this blog with them. They are welcome to give their side of the story. I hope that someone from AXA will answer the following question that I throw out to executives from all companies that have decided to scale back despite the fact that they are doing well:

How do you expect the economy to ever recover if you don’t spend money and if you make decisions that are contributing to the deminse of many organizations?

Please don’t think I am just picking on AIG and AXA.  In one of my other blogs, I  have previously written about some of  the bizarre ways in which companies were spending money on recreational activities and passing them off as “team building.   The problem with corporate excess is that there will ALWAYS  be a backlash and innocent people eventually have to pay for the poor judgement of executives by losing their jobs.

The Consequences:

The latest:

Since we released this article, there has been another one:

Luxury hotels like the Ritz-Carlton have suffered from the backlash from the so-called “AIG effect.”

Just days after the federal government committed $85 billion of taxpayers’ money to a bailout of insurance giant American International Group (AIG) in September 2008, senior execs from the troubled company headed to the swanky St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach for a week of wining and dining of 100 top salespeople.

The uproar was deafening.

“The whole demonization of luxury meetings and companies’ pulling back on having their high-end meetings in luxury hotels–. this has had a tremendous impact on Las Vegas,” Ritz-Carlton spokeswoman Vivian Deuschl reportedly said.

Last year, revenue for U.S. luxury hotels fell nearly 17 percent, outpacing the 14 percent drop in the overall industry, according to an analysis by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC. Revenue per available room, a fiscal measure of health in the industry, plummeted about 24 percent, compared with a 16.4 percent drop for the industry overall.

Deuschl did not comment specifically on the Ritz-Carlton Las Vegas occupancy levels, other than to say it is lower than the company would like, but she did have an opinion about the ripples from the AIG effect.

Fallout in Canada

The AIG effect does have an impact on companies in Canada and around the world:

Still think AIG effect has no impact on Canada?

Here is the latest:


  • Inn at Manitou Closes Doors After 36 Years (Ontario)
    • Reversing the AIG Effect

    A Landmark study has revealed the ROI of business travel so there is no justification for companies that are doing well to continue to put the lid on spending in this area.
    PERFORMANCE LEVEL: Are overseas incentives bouncing back?

    It was the poor judgement of some corporations that triggered the AIG effect. It is the selfishness, short-sightedness and cowardice of other corporations that is prolonging it. Sound decision-making and decisive action can reverse the AIG effect.

    The time to act is now! So here is the bottom line:

    • If your company is in trouble, don’t schedule a luxury junket or corporate event. Instead, hire a consultant and have an on-site team building or brain storming session to generate solutions to your business challenges

    Here are some ideas and guidelines:

    • If your company is doing well, don’t cancel your incentive travel programmes or retreats.

    Ideas & Resources

    How to Add Value to Your Meetings & Other Complimentary Resources

    Let’s stop this madness before we do permanent and irreversible damage to the global economy. Your team has worked really hard, beat the odds and generated outstanding results. They deserved to be rewarded. Let’s learn from excesses of the past, reward teams and expess appreciation to clients in a way that shows good judgement.  At a time when there are so many in need at home and abroad, devote part of your sales incentive trip or retreat to a project that gives back to the community. Help boost the economy and save jobs by booking a sales incentive trip or retreat today.

    I join the following organizations in urging executives from companies that are doing well to reactivate their incentive travel programmes before even more hotels go bankrupt, more employees lose their jobs and companies in the hospitality and business travel industry are forced to close their doors for ever.

    Great minds think alike. It looks like this blog entry is timely. Just saw this in the current issue of Forbes:

    AIG Effect

    Executive Oasis International is a Toronto based consulting firm that helps organizations succeed even in the midst of turbulence. Core services include consulting and on-site facilitated business team building and off-site team building reatreats. They also offer incentive travel and corporate event planning to help organizations reward their people when business objectives have been achieved.

    You are welcome to reprint this article as long as you keep the by-line intact and ensure that all links are live.

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Rewarding Your Team Even During Tough Times

This post  was inspired by comments made by Marie Hunter on Tuesday, March 10, 2009, in her blog. It is a response to her questions:

Meetings, Events, Travel and Hospitality Industry: Leaders Needed, Marie Hunter wrote:

“When it comes to meetings, travel and entertainment, America is in a temporary state of gridlock. Headlines condemning corporate entertainment next to headlines about ponzi schemes and secret bonuses have caused public outrage and boardroom paralysis. This panic may be understandable based on the events of the past few months; but, the panic itself has dire consequences for the economy.

What questions should we be asking?
Now more than ever, corporate leaders, elected officials, regulators, industry associations, small business owners and salespeople nationwide are struggling to understand what is and is not appropriate when it comes to client entertainment and employee perks. When is it appropriate to spend money to recruit, educate or incent employees? A question that is not getting as much press, but that I would like to see on the table, is when, if ever can public companies allow employees to engage in entertainment practices that implicitly or explicitly condone gender bias?

Marie, I decided to take a stab at answering your questions and accept your challenge but my response became too long for  the comments section.

Before we begin, here is the White House’s position on business travel and meetings:

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said President Barack Obama was not discouraging travel when he said last month that businesses receiving federal bailout money should not be taking junkets.
“The president believes it’s important to have a strong tourism industry and that it’s important that, as the president said earlier … that we shouldn’t retrench,” Gibbs said. “He would encourage people to travel.”

Gibbs said Thursday that the president was referring specifically to companies “that are getting large amounts of public funding.”

“The President does have great concern with public money being used for that,” he said. Gibbs added that the president’s comment was “very clear,” and passed on a chance to express regret.

So,  here is my take on your questions.  I encourage other management consultants, meeting and business travel professionals to respond to your challenge and answer your questions in their blogs. Since I am based in Toronto, I’ll be giving some Toronto examples but they can be applied at other locations.

 

How to Reward Your Team Even During Turbulent Times

What meetings and events do you feel should be green-lighted immediately and why?

When companies are in trouble, they should be spending THOUSANDS of dollars to bring in management and business team building consultants to help  them resolve their problems instead of HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of dollars on junkets and luxury events. Either through on-site meetings or off-site retreats at AFFORDABLE local venues such as community centres and conservation areas, consultants can steer organizations through a structured brainstorming process to identify:

  • cost saving measures and strategies
  • new target markets
  • new sources of revenue
  • strategies for improving efficiency

Depending on your location, here are a couple of ideas. These sessions can be offered at luxury resorts when the good times roll and conservation areas when times are tough. The content remains the same, the recreational components are the only things that change:

  • Wilderness Survival
  • Desert Survival
  • Arctic Survival
  • Visexecutaries - loosely based on the Apprentice, this session can be delivered at a luxury resort or a local community centre. When times are tough, the “task” can consist of developing a strategy to address some specific business challenge your organization is facing 

Save the lavish celebrations for when your company is back on track. In North America, we seem to want to party all the time.  Unfortunately, all too, often the emphasis seems  to be on strictly recreational events that organizations try to pass off as team building. Definitely we get far more calls for recreation and entertainment than consulting. This is quite surprising during a recession. People seem to forget that they are running businesses not social or country clubs. This bandaid approach is merely offering placebos instead of getting to the root of organizational problems and generating solutions.

What gender-related entertainment practices should be discontinued?

Strip clubs, male only golf clubs, etc. are highly inappropriate and they have NEVER had a place in a  corporate setting PERIOD!! Ditto for bringing porno movies to coroporate retreats and skinny dipping on the corporate dime. Grow up. You’re running a business not a fraternity house.

While we’re at it, it’s time to cut back on alcohol consumption and the open bars at corporate events for a while. This will save a bundle.

What constitutes lavish entertaining?

When companies are in trouble, they should postpone expensive events and partying until performance has improved. Focus instead on resolving business problems.

If everyone has worked hard and you’ve had a successful year, pull out all the stops. Lavish entertainment to reward employees and express appreciation to clients is perfectly in order when you’ve earned it. Depending on  your location, some ideas might include:


When is it okay to spend money on Employees?

Even when a company is facing a challenging year, it’s important to reward top performers, build skills and boost morale. The key is to gear the spending to organizational performance.

Hint: When a company is in trouble, more money should be spent on resolving business issues than on entertainment and recreation. Far too often, it’s the reverse.

How should recruits be entertained?

Again it depend on whether or not the company is performing well. If the company is facing challenges, you can still entertain recruits but choose a cost effective strategy such as:

If a company is doing,  well consider some of the options I’ve already listed and other luxury options like:

These are perfectly in order when a company is doing well.

If you’re located in the Middle East, a desert safari would be perfect. If you’re in the Caribbean perhaps a beach barbeque would work.

What other questions should we be asking?

I posted these suggestions on Marie Hunter’s blog. I’ll take a stab at anwering them now.

 What can companies that are having financial difficulties difficulty do to reward their people?

Companies can reward top performers and top performing teams and still provide a meaningful experience for hundreds of dollars instead of thousands of dollars. There is no need for gift cerfiticates starting at $1,000 per employee.  People seem to be lacking imagination.

Under $250 per person

  1. Give top performers gift certificates for spa TREATMENTS or a local Day at the Spa rather than spending a weekend away for a spa retreat.
  2. An overnight stay at a nice local inn with dinner and breakfast for top performers and their spouses.
  3. Get a corporate table at Polo for Heart or a similar event and invite top performers and their spouses.
  4. Dog sledding afternoon and lunch at a local inn or resort.
  5. Morning of horse riding and lunch at a local inn or resort.
  6. A day at  Canada’s Wonderland for top performers and their families.
  7. Seasons passes to Canada’s Wonderland for a family of 4.
  8. A day at the zoo for the top performers and their families.

Under $100 Per Person

  1. Dinner at a nice restaurant
  2. Afternoon Tea
  3. Movie passes for teams that have gone above and beyond the call.
  4. Theatre tickets.
  5. Concert tickets.
  6. Take a group of top performers and their spouses to the Royal Winter Fair including the horse show and dinner at the upscale restaurant that is on site every year.
  7. Get a table at the gala for tournament of champions.
  8. Tickets to local hockey, baseball or basketball games.

How should companies that are experiencing financial difficulty entertain their staff?

  • Picnics at a local conservation area
  • Christmas party – for heaven’s sake, don’t cancel the Christmas party. Insted, do it at a venue in the suburbs instead of a costly downtown venue. Consider using a community centre with an ice rink to save money and keep everyone entertained.
  • An evening at a comedy or improv club.

Anne Thornley-Brown is the President of Executive Oasis International, a Toronto based firm that regularly organizes incentive travel and executive retreats in  Dubai, Oman, Jamaica, Malaysia, Singapore, and Canada. They provide  one stop shopping service with  a  personalized approach to incentive travel for corporate groups of up to 40.  Customized itineraries include travel, transfers, hotel, tours, team activities, and special events.

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Incentive Travel Guidelines Welcome

Incentive Travel Industry Guidelines Welcome

by Anne Thornley-Brown, President

Executive Oasis International

The global recession and the use of funds for expensive trips and luxury events by some of the recipients of TARP funding  has unleashed a series of events that has created a crisis in the incentive travel industry.  As discussed in our most recent blog entry, many organizations that are doing well are now hesitant to schedule incentives or retreats due to concerns about the optics during a recession and the potential for negative publicity. This is unfortunate. The state of the industry was the impetus for a press release by the U.S. Travel Association earlier this week

“As the nation continues to suffer from one of the worst economic upheavals in our lifetime, the travel industry is facing its own challenges.

We saw in the aftermath of 9/11 that times like these can result in fundamental, long-term shifts in regulation, consumer behavior and overall perceptions. As the industry’s trade association, we are prepared to optimize the operating environment as best we can and guard against trends that could affect your ability to do business.

Post-9/11, the travel industry was caught in the middle of a paradigm shift. At that time, accessible travel was viewed to be in conflict with our national security needs. Public attitudes turned against international travel to the U.S. and new regulations quickly followed. As a result, the U.S. share of global inbound travel dropped dramatically, with an accumulative loss of more than $113 billion in travel spending in the U.S. and an average loss of 194,000 jobs each year.

Almost eight years later, our industry still has not fully recovered.

Today, we are at the leading edge of another potential sea change, this time focused on meetings, events, incentives and other forms of business travel. We are at risk of seeing this sector of the travel economy, which also is responsible for millions of jobs and billions in economic revenue, suffer lasting harm.”

Roger Dow, CEO , U.S. Travel Association  Source

The impact of the current recession and the negative publicity is not limited to the US or even North America. It’s global:

“Incentive tourism, which accounts for more than 12 per cent of the whole tourism activity in Dubai, is expected to lose up to 20 per cent of its inbound traffic in the period beginning February 2009 as a result of the global financial crisis.”

Source: Incentive tourism sector tightening its belt

“Travel agents in the UAE are reporting a severe dip in 2009 bookings for incentive packages both to and from the emirates as banks and property companies put a spending freeze on non-essential trips.

“Most of our incentive packages have either been put on hold or cancelled because of the economic situation,” said MMI Sales Executive Rakhi Purohit. “It’s gone down a lot recently – what is usually our peak season has basically been quiet.”

Purohit said banks and real estate companies in the UAE had put a freeze on incentive travel for staff. “That is what’s killing our business,” she added.

MMI’s Dubai-bound deals for European and US clients are also suffering, she said.”

Source: Incentives Slide in a Global Freeze

Leaders in the incentive travel industry have taken some steps in recent days to:

  •  provide guidelines about responsible spending for meetings, retreats and incentives
  • highlight the benefits of incentive travel with  US Government officials in Washington

The coalition has:

  • issued a press release:

Travel community issues guidelines for Use of Meetings and Events by Recipients of Emergency Government Assistance

  • issued spending and policy guidelines for TARP recipients re: incentives, meetings and events
  • started an e-petition to underscore the vital role that the incentive travel, meeting and event industries plays in the global economy

Coalition of Meeting Industry Associations Issues Guidelines for Responsible Spending by TARP Fund Recipients

The U.S. Travel Association and key associations representing professionals in the meetings, events and incentive travel industry have released suggested guidelines for recipients of TARP funding.

Suggested Guidelines for TARP Recipients (PDF)

 ”The business practices of our customers impact the welfare of our industry, our employee base and the economic health of the communities where we do business.  Working collaboratively, associations representing the meetings, events and incentive travel industries are addressing an urgent public need by developing clear, prudent guidelines for companies that have received taxpayer dollars.

The standards support President Obama’s recent call for the boards of directors of companies that have received emergency government lending to develop guidelines on conferences, events and employee recognition programs.”

Roger Dow, CEO ,  U.S. Travel Association

I applaud the measures and hope that they will encourage more responsible thinking, planning , accountability, and spending by ALL executives and decision makers. For some time now I have been expressing concerns about some of the spending that has been going on in the corporate sector and I have again discussed my concerns in recent blogs. This new emphasis on accountability is the only way that we can ensure the long term viability of our industry.

Keep America Meeting Campaign

In my  most recent blog, I also discussed the important role that incentive travel plays in creating jobs and keeping the economy rolling.  The  U.S. Travel Association has released figures indicated that meetings and events are account for 15 % of all travel spending. This generates nearly $40 billion in tax revenue at the federal, state and local level and creates more than  1 million jobs.

The same coalition that released the guidelines has  banded together in a grassroots highlight the critical role that incentives, meetings and events play in the US and global economies with  a campaign called:

Keep America Meeting 

Members of the public and professionals in the industry are encouraged to visit the website to download statistics and a whitepaper about the key role of the industry. The site has already collected over 1000 signatures for an e-petition that will be delivered to the White House, the House of Congress and CEOs at Fortune 200 companies to undescore the vital role of incentives and meetings in America. I hope that everyone who reads this blog will consider signing it.

If we all work together, we can turn things around and avoid the lengthy downturn that occured in the industry after 9/11, the 2002 – 2003 recession and SARS  (in Toronto and Asia).

Anne Thornley-Brown is the President of Executive Oasis International, a Toronto based firm that regularly organizes incentive travel and executive retreats in Dubai, Oman, Jamaica, Malaysia, Singapore, and Canada. They provide one stop shopping service with a personalized approach to incentive travel for corporate groups of up to 40. Customized itineraries include travel, transfers, hotel, tours, team activities, and special events.