SITE Global is the Society for Incentive Travel Excellence’s (SITE) biggest educational conference of the year, built on the association’s four foundational event pillars of connect, learn, discover and shape.
This year’s conference, which took place March 3-6 at the Hilton Tulum Riviera Maya All-Inclusive Resort in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, drew 557 registrants from 42 countries who, despite their differences, all connected over a shared passion for incentive travel.
Attendees participated in a day-and-a-half of education sessions, from 60-minute keynote presentations to 25-minute quick-fire breakouts, to learn about current trends shaping the incentives sector and how they can continue working toward success.
Topics ranged from how to prepare for a shifting workforce and navigating career transitions to efficiently in AI, crisis management, the price of sustainability, geopolitical concerns, how to be allies in the communities we visit and more.
There was almost too much to learn in the time SITE Global took place, but the biggest takeaways were future-focused, keeping the success of the incentives sector—which is predicted to make up a $200 billion segment of the $1.6 trillion business events industry by 2031 alone.
Following are four key takeaways from this year’s SITE Global conference that every incentive travel professional should be aware of as the incentives market only continues to evolve and grow.
[Related: The Best Photos From SITE's 2025 Global Conference]
1. Curiosity Is a Superpower
When SITE CEO Annette Gregg welcomed attendees to Tulum during the SITE Global Opening General Session, she took a moment to speak about one quality she believes every incentive travel professional should be embracing right now: curiosity.
“If we want to stay relevant, personally and professionally, we have to all adopt a spirit of curiosity,” Gregg said. “The world is changing too fast. We get afraid of things like AI and all these changes that are going on. We think they’re going to cause more work for us, but they’re really causing more possibilities.”
Gregg instructed the audience to consider what it would look like for them to replace fear of their unknown with curiosity, to leverage taking risks and ask better questions. Staying curious is the only way to keep up with the changes incentive professionals face, and living in fear means living in the past.
If planners want their incentive travel programs to be successful and on-trend, to deliver everything their qualifiers are looking for and give them a transformational travel experience, curiosity is the most important tool in the toolbox.
On the screen behind her, Gregg displayed a quote by Walt Disney that summed it up perfectly: “We keep moving forward, opening new doors and doing new things because we're curious, and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”
2. Destination Selection Is a Blend of Decision-Making Factors
SITE Global attendees got a sneak peek at the fourth installment in SITE’s proprietary inSITEs series—a comprehensive collection of studies exploring four key incentives industry stakeholders: corporate planners and end users; C-suite executives; qualifiers and participants; and destinations.
The Destination inSITEs study was made public March 6 and serves as “a data-driven exploration” of incentive travel destination selection, providing intelligence on key factors including budget, safety, accessibility, marketing and more. It drew on exclusive data from SITE’s Incentive Travel & Motivational Events (IT&ME) survey and the annual Incentive Travel Index (ITI).
Pádraic Gilligan, who took on a consultancy and research role with SITE in December 2024 after serving as the association’s chief marketing officer for seven years, introduced SITE Global attendees to the study through a quick 25-minute breakdown of the basics.
Destination inSITEs explored four key lines of inquiry: What factors are impacting decisions for 2025 and beyond? Is budget the key driver of destination choice and program design in 2025 and beyond? What’s working in destination marketing? And is incentive travel really only 8% of business events revenue in destinations?
Here’s how Destination inSITEs—and a thoughtful analysis of the study by Gilligan—answered those questions:
- The top three factors currently influencing destination selection are destination appeal, infrastructure and security and safety, with value of money coming in fifth place behind connectivity or accessibility. “We can see already that where value for money places has actually changed when we look at some of the other data coming in from last year, where value for money all of a sudden goes into the top position,” Gilligan said.
- Of increasing importance in terms of destination type are new destinations (70%) followed by all-inclusive resorts (42%) and short-haul locations (40%).
- The No. 1 most important requirement for incentive destinations is “all treated equally with respect.”
- “Is budget the key driver of destination choice and program design in 2025 and beyond?” Gilligan said. “Yes, it is, but we drilled down here. Where is the budget going?” In 2025, nearly 27% of a program budget is allocated to hotels; 21.2% goes toward airfare; and 18.2% is spent on F&B.
- The top three short-term challenges for incentive travel professionals are rising costs/inflation, attracting/retaining talent and uncertainty. Long term, the top three challenges are rising costs/inflation, attracting/retaining talent and how to leverage AI.
- When it comes to incentive travel planners’ attitudes toward supplier partners, 37% say working with a local affiliate office or branch is not helpful. However, working with a DMC or local receptive agency is viewed as helpful (41%) and even crucial (45%).
- The top three preferred sources of information for destination selection are events industry tradeshows (83%), personal recommendations (67%) and fam trips (62%).
- Contrary to the 8% global average of total business events activity incentive travel comprises, “65% of 2024 ITI respondents—or over 100 DMO professionals—estimated the market share of incentive travel at between 10%-50% for their destinations,” according to Destination inSITEs.
To learn more about Destination inSITEs or to view the full study, visit siteglobal.com/destination-insites.
[Related Webinar: Destination and Site Selection: The Basics and Deeper Dives]
3. Hotel Brands Are Growing Their Incentive Portfolios
Data from the 2024 ITI showed that more than half of respondents are increasing their budgets not only to match inflation but also to improve incentive programming, and based on results from recent SITE studies and surveys, Gregg said, the incentives sector “is really surging.”
“The other part of that story is a lot of these hotel companies are also doubling down on the all-inclusive thing,” Gregg said. “Hyatt just bought a whole new suite, Playa Hotels, and Hilton created this new incentive alliance of their hotels, and it’s an intentional effort to get more incentive business.”
“We invited our top customers in the incentive housing segment to come in as an advisory group to help us understand the trends they are seeing,” said Kim Napolitano, executive director of industry relations and intermediary group sales for Hilton. “It gave us an opportunity to listen loudly to the customer segment that we’re hyper-focused on, and from that we shared with them the launch of the Hilton Incentive Collaborative, which is a collection of hotels that are in your traditional incentive destinations. We currently have 78 hotels, and the goal is to hit 100 by the end of this year.”
The goal of the collaborative, Napolitano said, is to take the intelligence Hilton has learned from advisors in the incentives segment, apply it to the hotels and make it easy for incentive customers to book into designated properties.
“The Incentive Collaborative hotels have turnkey elements that are unique to their destination, that create those wow moments that can transform an individual at an incentive experience,” Napolitano said. “They have standardized global contract terms and conditions, and we have a [corporate social responsibility (CSR)] component as well, so what is something unique that is sustainably focused that we can bring to life during an incentive experience?
“The goal is to make it easier for Hilton’s incentive buyers to book and have this experience that’s really transformative,” she continued. “At the end of the day, the research through the [Events Industry Council (EIC)] in tandem with Oxford Economics in 2024 clearly defined that out of the $1.6 trillion business industry segment, under that huge umbrella is $112 billion that is the incentive segment, and it’s due to have 12% lift year over year. So, by 2031, incentives is going to be a $200 billion segment alone.”
[Related: Hyatt Acquires Playa Hotels & Resorts in $2.6 Billion Agreement]
4. Tomorrow’s Talent Is Today’s Greatest Task
A common thread across conversations at this year’s SITE Global conference was talent and the shifting workforce, and how now is the time for the incentive travel industry to take on a future-focused mindset.
Amy Calvert, president and CEO of EIC, spoke to SITE Global attendees about the issues most likely to shape the global business events industry, according to the EIC’s Futures Landscape Report 2025. One of the first points she brought up was the issue of talent.
“As these generational shifts are happening, there are different concerns and priorities being raised, and the question here is, are organizations able to meet those expectations around talent?” Calvert said.
“An interesting data point from Ipsos, who was our partner in the research, is almost 50% of the people that responded anticipate that their organizations are going to support their upskilling and professional development,” she continued. “That wasn’t a given when I started in the industry, but now our children have that expectation. They’re going to give back and invest and be dedicated and loyal to organizations they feel are offering them the same.”
Organizations can evaluate what young professionals value to adapt and modernize their company culture, but initiatives like that will only work if young professionals know you exist. One challenge the incentive travel industry faces in attracting young talent is not that it’s not an appealing career choice; it’s simply that young talent doesn’t know anything about incentive travel until it’s “too late.”
“One thing at EIC that we’ve been really focused on in terms of workforce development is, are we being clear and compelling in our messaging to those outside of our industry about why this is a great industry to be a part of?” Calvert said.
“It’s about equipping the next generation. It’s not necessarily about recruitment of talent, although that is part of it,” Gregg said. “We are still figuring out how to tell a cohesive, exciting story about what incentive travel is to the next generation.”
[Related: The Z: How to Attract and Hire Gen Z Employees in the Events Industry]
Ask an Attendee
Nine attendees answered the following question: What is your biggest takeaway from this year’s SITE Global conference?
- “Leave a destination better than you found it.” – Paula Carlson, Senior Sales Manager, Westin Ft. Lauderdale Beach Resort
“It’s important to understand people’s cultures so you do not offend them.” – Gilbert Villard, Regional Sales Executive, Visit Lauderdale - “Small changes, one drop at a time.” – Benoit Sauvage, Founder and CEO, Connect DMC
- “We should start practicing the Platinum Rule—treat people how they want to be treated—versus the Golden Rule, or treating others how we want to be treated.” – Tiffany Cohen, SVP Incentives and Global Sourcing, Opus Agency
- “SITE Global is a definitive way to live and breathe the power of connection.” – Monique Rochard-Marine, Head of Global Commercial Services & Operational Efficiency, Cordis
- “’This is good!’” – Stacy Daeffler, Director of Group Sales, The Charter at Beaver Creek, quoting something Light Watkins, speaker, author and mindfulness expert, said in his keynote speech at SITE Global. Watkins used the phrase in an anecdote to teach the audience that every step they take in their path is meant to be taken.
- “Be present. [Author and speaker] Light [Watkins] taught me not to spend time regretting the past or worrying about the future when being in the present moment is what’s most important.” – Sara Mahoney, Global Sales Office-Regional Director of Group and Leisure Sales, Ocean Properties Hotels Resorts and Affiliates
- “There is nothing more important than bringing people together. The power of connection is incredible.” – Hayley Greaves, Vice President Global Operations, CWT Meetings & Events
- “The biggest takeaway is the community. Whether you’re part of the bigger SITE community or the smaller communities or chapters, it’s all important and impactful, and it’s important to bring it to the younger generations in the workforce right now.” – Priscilla Andrews, Business Development Manager, INSPIRE Solutions
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