It is encouraging that companies and organisations are once again planning ahead to travel beyond South Africa’s borders for their MICE requirements.
According to Travel Counsellor, Kerith Hulme, MICE enquiries are starting to come in for travel in the future. “In the last few years, when we had these sorts of enquiries, they were very last minute. This is a hugely positive sign and a show of confidence that we are starting to return to a world where we can plan for travel again.”
The most interesting development she has noticed is that there is now far more willingness from marketing or events agencies to work with a travel professional on their proposals for incentives or conferences.
“Whilst I have worn both hats for several years, which is a help in this space, I’m finding that a lot of my events clients – who previously would have sourced hotels, group flights and DMCs themselves – are now wanting to work with an agent. Both parties bring so much expertise into the space and a travel agent cannot do what an events company does (and vice versa), so I think this is a huge step forward for both industries.”
Clients are also more transparent that they are working with an agent, she says. “There has been absolutely no push-back on this, as I believe travel professionals have proven their value ten-fold over the last few years.”
Individual acknowledgement
CEO and founder of the Uwin Iwin International Group of companies, David Sand, says it’s difficult to quantify the resurgence in incentive business this year as an industry, as many players did not make it through the COVID-19 travel disaster.
“I believe as an industry that we will have to build back confidence and use of incentive travel as a tool. Uwin Iwin is one of the survivors who maintained all staff and clients due to our diverse range of incentive offerings. Our travel teams are 100% back to full-service mode and we have grown our client base by 10% year-to-date, hopefully ending up even stronger by year-end.”
He adds: “I’m so pleased and grateful that we’ve entered a new beginning for incentive travel. We did very well with our U-GO incentive travel voucher, which rewards individual high-performing team members with customised travel opportunities. We will continue with it, since we believe this trend will also be with us for a while, as group travel builds up again.”
Generalised chaos
In terms of navigating current challenges related to visas and flight capacity to ensure that experiences remain incentivising for delegates, Hulme says the only way to cope is to stay updated and be completely transparent with clients about what may go wrong.
“After the COVID-19 years, people seem a lot more understanding that things may change prior to their travels and, with groups in particular, there is a greater awareness of the supplier terms and need for insurance. Travel incentives are not going away and even small local breaks for corporates are incredibly well attended after being unavailable for so long. I am definitely optimistic about further growth and appreciation within this market.”
According to Sand, delivery of an exceptional turnkey trip experience remains the goal for any incentive and having exceptionally well-qualified incentive professionals in the team is the only way to do this. “Uwin Iwin’s commitment to the team during the pandemic – and that team’s constant ongoing engagement with clients during the chaos and uncertain times – has ensured that we were able to deliver incentive-quality experiences when the time came. The disruptions in the supply chain often necessitated that our team went above and beyond in finding solutions to very challenging situations that could have negatively impacted on the experience for participants, but were resolved before this happened.”
In his opinion, this challenging environment will persist for at least a year more, as the industry sees airlines, hotels and other supply chain components battle to reinstate service levels to pre-pandemic expectations.
Go-to destinations
Destination selection for incentive travel has been extremely challenging during recent times and Sand feels that the stand-out destination during the pandemic was the Maldives, with its no-fuss COVID-19 policies of welcoming all who were vaccinated and tested negative. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has put Russia and most of Eastern Europe out of play for decision-makers, he adds, however the strong classical European cities and destinations are still high on the agenda.
“In recent participant surveys that we conducted with large sample sizes, the two preferential continents for travel for South Africans were Europe and North America, with Switzerland as a stand-out leader of destinations winners would like to see on the offering for future incentive trips.”
Hulme has found Turkey to be very popular for groups – visa-free, affordable, direct flights and a high standard of accommodation and excursions. “I’ve also had a few enquiries into Bali and Singapore, and several focused on big sporting events like the F1, Rugby World Cup etc.”
Hulme says direct flights definitely make a difference, especially with the generalised travel chaos at the moment. “Most clients know that costs are high due to the fuel surcharges, but my feeling has been that after so many years without travelling, this is only a minor factor when considering MICE destinations.”
Looking at incentives as a global industry, Walthers Destination Business Solutions Africa and Authentic Travel Africa MD, Daryl Keywood, says international demand for MICE events is definitely picking up from North America, Europe and the UK. “Brazil still has challenges in terms of air access with no direct flights and – surprisingly considering the current situation – we are even receiving MICE requests from Russia.”
