Trip Incentive Research Program Unveiled

A news release from Maritz said its Maritz Travel unit launched Maritz Travel Insight, which compiles employee survey results into a report that identifies what kind of trips employees would most like to take. The announcement said that the product allows employers to test several different trips to gauge employee response.

Questions posed by the research tool include:

• Program Attributes: this portion of the survey asks participants questions on up to 15 travel program attributes of incentive travel, such as trip length and destination choice and includes questions to identify which programs respondents would work harder to earn.
• Trip Activities: this section analyzes the priority of up to 20 activities, as respondents are asked to select activities they would most and least like to do.
• Participant Details: uncovers respondent profile types using demographics, past reward travel experiences and other groups.

A nationwide survey conducted using the new tool found three out of four respondents (76%) prefer smaller trips that offer choice in dates, destinations and activities. The poll also found that almost one out of six employees (14.5%) who won trips never showed up for them. The reasons: an unappealing trip (16%) and date conflicts (65%).

Other survey results include:

• younger participants prefer shorter awards programs more than older participants
• having big-named entertainment on a trip is more appealing to participants traveling with a spouse/partner than to those traveling without a spouse/partner
• date flexibility is more important to participants in lower income brackets ($75,000 and under) than to those with higher incomes
• having on-your-own leisure time during a trip is more important to ethnic minority groups.

More information is at  http://www.maritzresearch.com/ .