Timing is everything in comedy — and it’s no different in corporate incentive travel. Poor timing leads to stress, missed opportunities, and wasted budgets. Here’s why planning 18 months in advance is the secret to your success.
Getting a plan together for the perfect incentive trip takes a lot of details, including location, accommodations, meals and entertainment, activities tailored just for your winners, and so much more. Early planning is essential to securing the best options, avoiding higher costs, and giving your top performers the trip they worked so hard to earn.
So, how early are we talking?
18 months is ideal for trip planning if you want to get the timing just right for the best options and prices.
4 Reasons Why 18 Months is the Sweet Spot for Planning your Dream Experience
1. Secure the Best, or Settle for Less
The longer you wait, the fewer options you’ll have when it comes to accommodations, event spaces, and activities. First come, first served is the name of the game with venues, hotel room categories, meeting spaces, and entertainment – and if your top choices are spoken for, you’ll be out of luck.
Interested in that dreamy event space on the beach for your welcome night dinner? Want your C-Suite team to have upgraded rooms one night before your incentive trip officially starts? Hoping for that one awesome local band to kick off your awards reception? The longer you wait, the less likely these exclusive amenities and experiences can be yours.
Beyond availability, basic economics often come into play when you’re booking last minute. If there’s high demand for a limited supply, costs go up. Securing your spaces and activities in advance means you’ll have less demand to compete with and the best prices possible.
Real-World Scenario: When Second-Best Doesn’t Cut It
Without the proper planning, your group may lose out on a truly VIP experience – the kind of experience that keeps your winners motivated year after year. Private excursions, particularly in high-demand destinations, need advanced booking. Otherwise, you’ll end up on public excursions that are not truly tailored to your group’s needs.
A client of ours recently booked a group trip to Panama. Because they started planning 24 months out with our planning team, we were able to help them secure an exclusive evening event at the Panama Canal — an experience that left all of their winners in awe. The Panama Canal, considered the 8th Wonder of the World, only accepts one private event booking per night – so don’t wait until it’s too late!
VIP Evening Viewing Party for the Panama Canal
2. Longer Runways, Higher ROI
When leading an incentive trip, your goal is to drive productivity and performance within your team as they work toward an amazing opportunity. This ultimately translates to a boost to your bottom line, among other benefits. But if you’re running the program with shorter notice, you’re limiting the amount of time your top performers are incentivized to work at their highest potential.
Giving your participants the time to strategize, execute, follow up and close a deal will keep the motivation high, the excitement building, and result in more winners achieving higher levels of success. With a short promotional timeline, you’re throwing dollars out the window, and your incentive contest is losing altitude before it even takes off.
To keep the program top-of-mind for your potential winners, promote the contest early and often. Need some ideas for keeping your team motivated? Check out these tips.
Real-World Scenario: Sales Losing Altitude
Imagine your company launches an incentive trip program with only a few months to motivate participants to hit their targets. At first, there’s a flurry of excitement. But the limited timeframe leaves little room for strategic planning.
The short contest window forces participants to focus on quick wins instead of nurturing more significant opportunities. While some gains are achieved, the full potential of the team’s efforts is left untapped.
Now imagine launching the contest earlier, with more time to set goals, develop strategies, and execute with focus. That precious extra time motivates participants to aim higher, close larger opportunities, think with a long-term strategy, and sustain their performance. By the end, your people have achieved success, and you have reaped greater rewards — not just in revenue, but also in team engagement and morale.
Lesson learned: The more promotional runway you have,
the higher your ROI will lift off!
Don’t let this be you!
3. Avoid the Last-Minute Scramble
Figuring out logistics for anything takes time –– figuring them out for extensive group travel takes even more precious time. Without the appropriate time to thoroughly research and plan, you can run into challenges coordinating with suppliers, hotels, and activity partners. Even with a professional travel services company at your side, like Achieve Incentives & Meetings, the on-site vendors require ample time to plan and source everything needed for your ideal experience.
As anyone who has planned anything can attest, it’s excruciatingly stressful to wait for someone to call you back when you’re on a tight timeline. Think of it this way: you have grand plans for a pool-side party with local entertainment, light bites, and games for your opening night welcome. Timing needs to be exact, down to the minute, to make the event flow seamlessly. If you’re scrambling at the last minute to put it together, you risk losing out on those highly sought-after performers, that epic menu that fits perfectly with your theme, or worst of all, the preferred reservation time for the location.
Starting the process 18 months out gives everyone involved the opportunity to tailor your trip to your goals and your attendees’ expectations, without giving you the added stress of settling for plan B, or rushing through sloppy logistics. When you wait, you not only pay more — you risk settling for less.
Real-World Scenario: Avoid Flight Headaches
Some destinations require that visitors stay a minimum number of nights, or across specific “day patterns,” (for example, Wednesday – Sunday) in your destination to get a better deal on flights. If you wait too long, you can lose a valuable 10% discount, or be faced with blocked flights on flight plans to your destination. Portugal is one of those destinations that requires a certain number of days in the country to access lower-cost flights — so to secure your dates with optimal pricing, you’ll want to plan in advance. The longer you wait, the more you’ll pay — and the fewer options you’ll have.
Stress-less travel hack: Your travel planning team can work wonders — but only if you give them time to tailor every detail to perfection.
Breathtaking views of Lisbon, Portugal, captured during Team Achieve’s recent site inspection — where historic charm meets vibrant culture and stunning waterfront scenery
4. Unlock Exclusive Perks
Start early to build strong partnerships with local vendors and tourism boards. When you’ve got a good runway, you can negotiate deals or secure perks that wouldn’t be possible if you didn’t have a relationship with your on-site folks. Last-minute planning can also reduce your chances for collaboration on unique, personalized experiences that make your incentives motivating and meaningful.
Imagine your team watching a private fireworks show on a pristine Mexican beach or enjoying exclusive access to a cultural performance in Jamaica. Achieve Incentives can help secure complimentary VIP experiences like this and create memories that last a lifetime — but only if you start planning early.
Tourism boards and hotels only have so many funds set aside to contribute to incentive trips, and the sooner you select your destination, the sooner you can secure exclusive perks. Hotels are more likely to give freebies like waived set-up charges, spa discounts, reserved spaces, or chair massages at check-in if you give them advanced notice.
Real-World Scenario: Take Advantage of Perks Only Achieve Can Secure
When you have time to plan and brainstorm with tourism boards and destinations, beautiful things happen. Things like free fireworks, performances, or cultural celebrations that otherwise may not be an option, but can be trip-defining. Many locations in Mexico, for example, offer free fireworks to organizations they have relationships with, like Achieve Incentives. But if their fireworks vendor is already taken, you’ll be out of luck.
Your winners worked hard to earn this experience — make sure it’s worth it with VIP activities they’ll never forget.
Your secret sauce? Unlock those special perks and prices with a peak planning timeline.
Exclusive fireworks over Mexican resort beach & Achieve team member with dancers for culturally-inspired celebration in Panama
The Time is Now
The clock is ticking, but the opportunity to create something extraordinary is within reach. Every day you wait means fewer options and higher costs, so don’t settle for good enough.
With Achieve Incentives & Meetings, you can craft an unforgettable incentive program that your winners will remember for a lifetime. With decades-long relationships with phenomenal partners around the globe, we are well-versed in leveling up your experience and pulling off miracles.
Don’t miss the chance to create an exceptional experience. Check out our Steps to Success and schedule a call with our team. All you’ve got to do is dream big, and let us handle the rest. Giving us ample time to pull off epic experiences means you will look like a superstar while reducing your stress and enjoying the benefits of the VIP life.