An incentive specialist’s foolproof checklist for the ultimate corporate incentive travel programme.

Incentive travel for your team is a powerful way to motivate, reward, and strengthen your organisation's culture. From ‘stay-cations’ to exotic getaways, ultimate relaxation to thrills, the world is there to be experienced.   

The perfect travel incentive offers a mix of relaxation, adventure, and cultural experiences appropriate to your audience. It should also consider including activities that foster teamwork, networking, build a legacy and create shared memories. Going against misconceptions, it is SO much more than ‘just a holiday’, and a well-thought-out travel incentive can impact your team and business wondrously.  

Why should you consider incentive travel for your teams? 

  1. Increase team performance by rewarding those who meet, beat and smash targets  
  2. Celebrate company milestones, such as anniversaries or outstanding success 
  3. Boost team morale and enhance company culture (which is more important than ever with increased remote working!) 
  4. Align employees to the company’s goals, creating brand ambassadors 
  5. Increases retention and can help to attract top talent  

Planning for success requires careful consideration and strategic planning. Your programme should allow participants to enjoy unique, tailored experiences that appeal to them individually while simultaneously meeting the company’s objectives and values. There are many factors and moving parts to consider, and that’s why working with an incentive travel specialist, like asembl, can save you time and stress. 

But, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered! We’re going to share with you our foolproof 10-step checklist for planning the ultimate corporate incentive travel programme:  


      1. Destination Selection is Critical: 
        Choose a destination that reflects your company’s values, objectives and resonates with your target audience. Consider accessibility, safety, and the opportunity to incorporate unique experiences. If corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a priority, you can explore ways to give back, such as planting trees or participating in community clean-ups. However, to maintain the trip’s celebratory tone, these activities should be optional, or we recommend pre-incentive CSR activities, like fundraising or social campaigns to raise awareness. Destinations that offer something fresh and distinctive—beyond typical holiday resorts—will help spark excitement and leave lasting memories. If it’s fun, meaningful, and engaging for everyone, you’ve found a winner! 

      2. Know Your Audience:
        Understand your target audience’s preferences, interests, demographics and motivations. Use that understanding to design your programme to build on their aspirations and desire to be on the trip. Thus maximising their engagement with the overall campaign. Armed with in-depth knowledge of your audience, also consider how you can use that data to make the experience as memorable as possible for each participant. 

      3. Define Clear Objectives:
         From the outset, understand what you hope to achieve with clear objectives. Whether boosting sales, improving morale, or recognising achievements, you must align with the company and employees with a shared goal. For example, your company wants to boost sales of a certain product, so you decide to launch a sales incentive. Each employee has clear, set objectives and KPIs they need to achieve. To encourage above-and-beyond performance, the company can metaphorically ‘dangle the carrot’ of the trip of a lifetime and reward high-achievers.  

      4. Set a Realistic Budget: 
        Determine a realistic budget for the campaign. Build a detailed budget including sections for transportation, accommodation, F&B, programme, management time, merchandise/gifting, entertainment and miscellaneous costs. Don’t forget to build in any tax implications - both from a participant’s personal and corporate point of view.  

      5. Build a Campaign Brand:
        Designing an incentive, with a specific campaign identity, can help to encourage excitement and give the incentive more gravitas. Construct a brand playbook that includes an overall identity, strapline, tone of voice, colour palette, and logo with guidelines for their correct usage. Ensure all campaign-related communications, merchandise and gifts are aligned with your brand playbook to keep the final prize at the top of mind.  

      6. Personalisation:
        A must for the VIP treatment. Special touches such as room drops, shopping vouchers, clothes, or something as simple as a book to relax with can all add to the experience. But it’s not all about the extra shiny trimmings; personalisation also encompasses inclusivity and accessibility. As Steve says, “We need to ensure our guests are looked after, whether it’s physically or mentally; we want everyone to feel comfortable and safe in their surroundings”. Tailoring an incentive experience to meet individual tastes, abilities and boundaries, and stop thinking 'one-size-fits-all' because it very rarely does.  

      7. Launch with impact: 
        Once you’ve decided on your dream destination, launch it with impact.  Consider a destination sizzle video, launch brochure, and dedicated microsite, along with a regular flow of teaser communications.  We often recommend interactive launch days where you can make a song and dance of it! Bringing dancers, activities and food from the destination can raise the excitement. It’s key to remember that the overall success of your campaign may rest on how aspirational your audience views the destination. 

      8. Use Technology: 
        The appropriate use of technology can enhance the overall user experience. Using data capture and polls pre-event allows you to personalise the experience or consider apps for itinerary management, group communication, bulletin updates, teaser campaigns and social media sharing. Tech can help you create buzz and streamline processes, but avoid using technology for technology’s sake.

      9. Measure Success: 
        Set clear KPIs for your campaign and track performance before, during, and after the trip against your KPIs to measure its effectiveness. Evaluate factors like employee satisfaction, productivity, return on investment and return on experience. Build a post-activation engagement, such as an in-app questionnaire, to acquire as much qualitative data, feedback and insight as possible. This will help you measure ROI and ROE and improve future campaigns. 

      10. Follow Up: 
        Always express gratitude to your participants. Post-event images, videos, photo albums or gifts from the destination are all lovely ways to remember the trip of a lifetime. It also helps to launch the next incentive by creating a sense of FOMO amongst those who couldn’t attend. 

So, now that you’ve got this 10-step checklist, you can get planning, OR you can give us a call! The incentives team at asembl. are experts in designing and delivering unique, highly aspirational incentive campaigns and experiences that deliver results. If you’d like to have a conversation with one of our incentive experts, get in touch here or call us on +44 (0)23 93 234 222