Business travel not The most fascinating image is often thought of: working groups in meeting rooms overlapping meetings, embarrassing dinners with colleagues at an unparalleled restaurant chain. But for some lucky employees, there is a special job trip that is not only something to look forward to, but also to fight for: the company motivates travel.
Mark, former sales director at LinkedIn, requesting not to use his real name, is a frequent visitor to the company’s motivational travel industry, where the company inspires employees to crush their sales goals in luxury hotels and Bucket-list-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List-List He qualifies to award the company seven of these trips, including the four-season resort of Papagayo in Costa Rica and the other is Apurva Kempinski in Bali. “It’s a little ruin for my wife and I, because we’ve already done so many of these trips now that we know these places exist,” he said.
His company usually buys entire hotels for thousands of the best performers (usually four seasons) and they are all invited to bring the people they consider the biggest, which contributes the most to their success. (Mark, a smart man, usually brings his wife.) While there are usually hours of meetings or conversations that are a morning, the rest is real, real fun: Mark recalls being skeptical of a “white party” on Costa Rica beach, and then it ends up turning into a huge orgy where everyone covers the face and dance time in the face and dance until the fabric. “It’s probably one of the more interesting parties I’ve ever been to,” he said.
Company rewards or incentive travel are common motivational tools in sales-centric work, especially in the financial, insurance, pharmaceutical and automotive industries. (Multi-level marketers love them too.) It’s also the midstream for big tech companies like Microsoft and Salesforce, which hosted Katy Perry, an Oberg resort on its 2022 presidential tour to Mauna Lani in Hawaii.
A 2014 report by the Nonprofit Incentive Research Federation shows that U.S. businesses spend more than $22 billion on incentive travel each year, while 46% of the companies surveyed rely on it to reward advanced performance, with the largest sales plan. (A follow-up study in 2022 correctly predicts that spending on triggers will increase significantly.) Over the past few years, as the world reopens after the pandemic and the peak of tourism, these travels have become more and more abundant and stable, companies have become more and more, companies compete with five-star employees, which could be a five-star wedding – if none of the five racing tracks at your wedding are a bougie, if it is a wedding.
Illustration: Alex Green
“After Covid, things went crazy,” said Sean Hoff, founder of the Toronto-based company’s corporate rewards program. Companies that once brought top employees to nearby locations such as New York City or Miami suddenly asked him to plan a tour to Asia or the Middle East. Many of Hoff’s clients are real estate developers or brokers based in Canada, and as the market thrives, “it’s almost like a mini arms race where different builders try to compete for who can provide the most incredible trip,” he said.
While companies typically spend between $4,000 and $6,000 per participant, the most luxurious trip may sell for as much as $25,000 per head. A special decade-old trip to Paris for a group of real estate agents, including accommodation in Hôtelplaza Athénée, a fashion industry hotspot once favored by Elizabeth Taylor, Jackie O, Jackie O and Grace Kelly, where rooms can accommodate over $1,500 per night. Attendees around Citröen CV2S in the 1960s were stirred around the city of Light; events included behind-the-scenes tours of the Louvre hosted by the chief curator and private meals at Le Jules Verne, a two-meter-star restaurant in the Eiffel Tower.
