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Why it’s good to be an incentive travel professional in 2021 Like all incentive travel professionals, I’m looking forward to better times as we move into the second quarter of 2021. Realistically, it cannot get any worse as the pandemic has thoroughly devastated, decimated and destroyed the incentive travel industry – at least temporarily.
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his was graphically illustrated by the Incentive Travel Industry Index (ITII)1 which showed activity down in 2020 by as much as 85 per cent. That only seven per cent of our industry shuttered their businesses completely in 2020 is credit to the dogged resilience of our collective character and, depending on where we are located in the world, on very welcome government supports.1
Key programme objectives switch from hard dollars to soft power However, if ITII depicts an industry on its knees, it’s not there only in desperate, 32 Business Events Africa May 2021
hopeless supplication. It’s also on its knees in active reflection, asking itself big questions around identity, meaning and purpose. In fairness, our self-interrogation pre-dates the pandemic. For some time now, many incentive travel professionals have been questioning what we do, particularly in the areas of equity, consumption, sustainability, climate justice and so on. The pandemic has now accelerated these thought processes and ITII, a snap shot of pan industry sentiment from September/October 2020, shows definite signs of this type of
thinking entering the main stream. Previous ITII reports noted an increase of focus on soft power over hard dollars. However, as already highlighted in a previous column, this year, for the first time, hard dollar returns (ROI, performance upticks etc.) are not ranked in first position as the ultimate metric for incentive travel success. This year soft power elements – engagement, relationship etc – dominate the ranking, confirming how the metrics around success for incentive travel are being actively redefined and infused with brand new identity, meaning and purpose. www.businesseventsafrica.com
