Incentive - September 2011

This year’s panel discusses the return of incentives, disengaged employees, and putting the AIG effect to rest

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By Leo Jakobson Photographs by David Yellen

PARTICIPANTS

1/ Fay Beauchine President, Business Loyalty, Carlson Marketing

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2/ Jeffrey Broudy Executive Vice President and COO, United Incentives; Chairman of the Board, Incentive Research Foundation

3/ Gregory Canose President, Award Marketing Services

4/ Jacqueline Goldy Vice President of Sales, MGM Resorts International Operations

5/ Paul Gordon Senior Director of Sales, Rymax Marketing Services

6/ Matthew Harris Vice President, Marketing, InteliSpend Prepaid Solutions; Vice Chairman, Incentive Research Foundation

Every year, Incentive convenes a panel of experienced profes- sionals from every sector of the industry to talk about the state of the incentive business. On June 9, our 11 participants gathered at Apella, an airy, modern, high-tech event space located in the Alexandria Center for Life Sciences overlooking Manhattan’s East River. For the first time since 2008, there was genuine, if still somewhat cautious, optimism around the table. Rather than a discussion of budget cuts and companies fleeing incentive travel as in recent years, the talk was of restoration and return, of Millennials and social media, and of the excitement around two big new travel trade shows.

What follows is the highlight reel of that discussion; a lot more details and insights can be found in the extended transcript online at http://bit.ly/inc2011Indus- tryRoundtable.

7/ Jane Herod

COO, Maritz Travel Co.

8/ Lynn Pavony Director of Incentive Sales, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts

INCENTIVE TRENDS

INCENTIVE: The incentive business has lagged behind the broader meetings business in the recovery, but it seems to be catching up this year. How strong is the recovery, and what areas is it strongest in?

9/ Anne Platt Senior Director Marketing, Gifting Solutions, Best Buy

10/ Laura Saeger, CMP, CMM Business Tourism Manager USA, South African Tourism

11/ Jane Schuldt President, World Marketing Group; Vice President and Research Committee Chair, Site International Foundation

Fay Beauchine: We see a conservative comeback of the market. It all depends on the sector. Some of the incentive programs such as those in high tech never left during this recession. We see auto incentives coming back because Detroit’s building cars that people are excited about. We do see that some corporations are still sitting on funds and are a bit nervous about jumping into the market with both feet. There’s a lot of room to convince them that incentive programs are still a great business tool.