Maritz Offers Incentive Measurement Mechanism
Maritz Travel Co. last month introduced an employee-polling and data-analysis tool designed to measure the effectiveness of corporate incentive travel programs.
Maritz Travel Insight analyzes the results of an in-depth employee survey and identifies which travel reward attributes and activities best motivate employees. After the survey and analysis are completed, an incentive travel buyer can test a hypothetical trip through the software to quantitatively assess the projected effectiveness of the reward.
Three clients are using the new technology, said Chris Gaia, vice president of marketing for Maritz. The company eventually may compile selected survey results to offer as benchmarking statistics for the incentive travel industry, he said.
"There will be the ability, on a yet-to-be-determined number of attributes, that we would be able to make available in terms of how other companies look," Gaia said.
The tool would be most applicable for companies that stage incentive programs of 1,000 or more people and are challenged with finding fresh travel rewards for employees, Gaia said. As workforces diversify, many incentive travel buyers find it difficult to determine which destinations and activities appeal to employees.
"Companies are really challenged in how to improve the sales performance and how to answer the question: 'Is my incentive program generating the most return it can?' We're finding that clients are increasingly asking that, not just in incentive programs, but in meetings in general," Maritz's Gaia said.
In the past, many incentive programs have been designed through "gut feel" or anecdotal research into what would motivate employees, but there was no encompassing tool to measure the effectiveness of travel rewards, Gaia said.
"Everyone understands the motivating power of a trip, it's really a question of: 'Can we do better with the money we're spending?' Clients don't want to take more money out of their trips, they just want greater sales performance," he said.
Maritz used the tool to conduct a nationwide sampling of 884 travelers, and found three out of four respondents prefer smaller trips that offer choices in dates, destinations and activities. Also, 14.5 percent of employees who won trips failed to attend at least one earned trip because it was unappealing or conflicted with another commitment.
Maritz Travel Insight is based on a three-part questionnaire: program attributes, trip activities and participant details. Using the data, Maritz staffers then separate and quantify the value and impact of program attributes and then produce a report for the company. The analysis tool can be used multiple times, but survey results wouldn't change much unless there are many staff changes at the company.
Another benefit of the tool is it polls a broad section of the company's staff, not just top trip-earners, Gaia said.
"A lot of corporations are faced with situations now where they still have to raise the sales bar every year, but they don't necessarily have a great new product and they're not going to be able to hire new salespeople. Where's the growth going to come from? We tell them that it's probably going to be difficult to get it out of the people that are already earning the trip," Gaia said. "That's why it's important to look for the people in the middle and find a way to deliver a reward structure that's more motivating to them so they can improve their performance and reach the sales goals you need."