One of the biggest challenges faced by the travel trade is compensation for the time-consuming client consultation process. Incentive agents can experience this even more acutely as they spend countless hours crafting multiple itinerary proposals and competing for corporate bids – only to have a slim chance of winning the tender.
“I believe clients often don’t realise how much time and research goes into creating a proposal,” said Michelle Hunter, MICE Specialist at 360 Degrees Travel. “Besides the many hours spent on budgeting and storyboard presentations, often there is a cost involved. The clients send the tender to multiple agencies at the same time so you will find four or five agencies bidding for the same business.”
Raoul Canetti, MD of U-Cannect, a representation company for several international DMC services specialising in incentives, pointed out that this was further exacerbated by unrealistic proposal expectations, widespread bid shopping and lack of unity among incentive agencies.
Hunter agreed: “If all incentive companies worked together and charged a small fee per proposal, which was refundable on confirmation of the awarded group, it would stop the ‘fishing’ in the industry. However, it will be necessary for us all to stand together to get this right. I don’t know of another profession that doesn’t charge for their time.”
However, Canetti explains that the industry needs to be strategic with how to address this challenge as they cannot collude and regulate how the industry should be charging.
For this reason, Canetti, along with other key industry players including the COO of Tourvest MICE, Thembi Hunene-Msimang, the CEO of Uwin Iwin Performance Incentives, David Sand, the Director of the Winners Group, David Van Schalkwyk, BidTravel CEO, Lidia Folli, Director of Wow Incentives & Events, Gail Du Toit, Bold Engagements Co-Founder and Director, Marya Roux, and Co-Owner of Rewards Incentive & Conference Management, Carla Napoli, are working towards establishing an African Incentive Travel Council.
According to Canetti, the African Incentive Travel Council's role will be to address these challenges through education, promoting fair practices, enabling industry collaboration, setting standards and empowering incentive agents to push back against unfair corporate practices.
Some of the incentives the council is working on include:
- Educating both incentive agents and corporate clients about the value and complexity of incentive travel planning.
- Encouraging fair practices in the tender process and providing guidance on how to charge for services.
- Fostering greater collaboration and unity among incentive companies to address these common challenges.
- While not able to dictate pricing due to anti-collusion laws, it can offer guidance on best practices, such as limiting the number of destinations quoted or charging for additional proposals.
- The council intends to empower incentive agents to push back against unfair corporate practices and to have the courage to stand up for their worth.
“We are all worried about people taking advantage of the competitive edge, but at the same time, if we can get everybody to stand together, we can stand up for ourselves,” said Canetti.
