The family-friendly trend appears to be especially strong where incentive meetings are concerned. While incentive programs have always been couples-oriented, many attendees are now opting to bring the children along as well.
“We’re definitely seeing more requests for this. It’s getting close to surpassing the couples-only trip,” says Mary MacGregor, general manager-business development for MotivAction in Minneapolis. “For one client, we offer a choice of group trips where participants can either take a couples-only trip or do a trip for four. The budget is the same for both, so the couples trip is higher end. A few years ago, almost everyone chose the couples-only trip, now it’s about 50-50.”
Nola Conway, president of LMS Meetings & Incentives in Culver City, Calif., also notes the trend, adding that more companies are offering family-friendly incentives.
“They will either pay for the kids or offer a special rate for them,” she says. “Family incentives are a very big motivation for younger qualifiers, who often sacrifice family time to make sales goals. It also helps to foster relationships within the company when they observe each other’s family life and their children become friends.”
Of course, it also means extra work for planners, she adds.
“For us, it means that we need to see that the hotels offer children’s programs, not just babysitting,” she says. “If the hotel doesn’t have these programs, we create them ourselves.”
With people working long hours and often in constant communication with the office, the chance to spend time with family is considered much more of a perk than it once was, says travel technology consultant Richard Eastman, president of the Eastman Group in Newport Beach, Calif.
“People really vie to take their family along – it’s a way of making up for the family time that has been lost,” he says.
However, not all planners are seeing a trend for family-family incentives and some say that the presence of family at incentive meetings can defeat the objectives.
“Some companies are offering family travel as a reward, but I don’t see it used much in incentive programs,” says Susan Alpert, president of International Travel Incentives in Santa Ana, Calif. “The purpose of the incentive is for management to get to know their people. This gets diluted when family is involved.
Gwenna Brush, president of Dallas-based Maxcel Co., also says she is getting very few requests from incentive qualifiers to include their kids.
“For many of our clients, who tend to be in high-pressure fields such as pharmaceuticals, the incentive is their vacation and their chance to get away from the kids,” she says.
