Even participants who do not qualify for incentive travel find the programs to be fair and motivating, according to new research.

The Site International Foundation and the Incentive Travel Council released the first of four parts of its extensive “Participant’s Viewpoint” study and found high levels of interest and engagement among incentive travel program participants who did not make the cut.

Just 11 percent of the non-qualifiers in the study reported not striving for the travel award due to lack of interest, while the 66 percent said they were interested. Only 11 percent felt their employers treated them unfairly, while 65 percent felt their programs were fair despite not winning.

nearly 80 percent of  previous qualifiers said they were motivated or extremely motivated to qualify, while 69.9 percent of previous non-qualifiers felt that way going forward.

“Participants understand the objectives they have been given, they believe that they are being treated fairly and the objectives are being set fairly,” says  Steve O’Malley, Site International Foundation’s president, and senior vice president and general manager of Maxvantage, based in St. Louis. “The industry is getting more right than wrong.”

One statistic that might cause concern is 38 percent of respondents felt that the same people win each year. Alos, 18 percent reported that their engagement was lower after not qualifying. But 67.7 percent of non-earners planned to work harder to qualify in the future, while just 2.7 percent said otherwise.

-Alex Palmer

Incentive Magazine