Despite technological changes, business travel or tourism remains a fundamental part of international business management. Business events have led to the growth of tourism-related activities on international markets as executives and employees travel for professional or personal reasons. When people travel to business events, they need services that construct the tourism product, including transport, cultural services, sports and recreational activities, accommodation, and food and beverages. International tourism is dominated by leisure and air travel, except in the Middle East, where relatives and friends matter more than leisure. Ultimately, business events entail individual business travel, meetings and conferences, incentive trips, corporate hospitality, and exhibitions (Davidson, 2019). To understand the business events sector better, it is necessary to explore the requirement of buyers of individual business travel and incentive trips and the resulting implications for suppliers.
Requirements of the Buyers
Individual business travel consists of the trips made by people whose jobs need them to travel to fulfil their employment duties. From politicians to journalists to accident investigators to talent spotters, there are select jobs that can only be done effectively if employees are prepared to stay away from home and change their working bases regularly. The buyers of individual business travel include the corporate sector, other organization types such as government bodies and voluntary industry. The process is done through in-house travel coordinators and secretaries (Lichy & McLeay, 2018). Alternatively, individual business travel can be secured through intermediaries, who are often traveling management firms and business travel agencies, using online booking services and implants.
Demand for individual business travel can be understood using two dimensions: the consumer and the customer. The end user of individual business travel is an employee of a corporation who receives instructions to fulfil their job duties. Employees travel as well as consume business tourism and travel services. The duties of workers on individual business travel may involve overseeing presentations, investigations, and conducting one-to-one meetings and consultations. Employers fund most individual business travel, but employees may combine their professional duties with leisure if their schedule is convenient (Boniface et al., 2020). Depending on their visit type and budget, buyers for individual business travel want different things.
Proximity remains a significant priority for individual business travelers as they want to conduct their business appointments conveniently and timely. Therefore, these travelers have a high likelihood of seeking travel managers that can book the most intuitive and convenient venues that meet all their needs. Proximity positively contributes to productivity as it reduces travel time in cities, freeing up more time to complete increased workloads (Lichy & McLeay, 2018). Most buyers of individual business travel want venues such as hotels and meeting rooms that consider location as a primary criterion for business events.
Individual business travel buyers need meeting rooms that are accessible to conduct their operations successfully. Business travel is vital to landing new clients, having significant conversations, and pitching ideas to current clients that require face-to-face interactions. As a result, individual business travelers prefer venues that offer accessible meeting spaces and conference rooms. Meeting spaces and conference rooms allow team members to rehearse before making important and big pitches (Cook et al., 2020). Having an opportunity to rehearse a presentation beforehand can make a difference in winning or losing on a new investment.
In addition, individual business travelers require fast services and healthy dining options.
Corporate travelers are busy individuals; therefore, they often need effective and fast services regardless of the type of services they request. They often work on short timeframes and repeatedly fly across different cities. For instance, room service should conveniently arrive in less than thirty minutes. Shoeshine and dry-cleaning services must be made available within a night. There is no time to waste for business professionals when it comes to preparing outfits or eating a nutritious meal. A great challenge in life that involves much traveling as an employee is staying healthy. Most individual business travelers are tempted by fast food chains that are conveniently located in airports (Cook et al., 2020). Thus, they are constantly looking for healthy dining choices to balance out their unhealthy options with clients or eat in airports.
Individual business travelers also want easy fitness options and settings that promote rest and productivity. They want venues such as hotels to have fitness centers that are well maintained, easy to locate, and spacious. Small fitness centers can be frustrating for guests, especially if they have to wait in queues to use certain fitness equipment. Individual business travelers will often consider settings that can promote their rest and productivity as they focus on getting their work done or resting to prepare for meetings. Therefore, they are likely to want productive venues equipped for business purposes, with services such as wireless connectivity and the internet. In addition, they need a comfortable and quiet venue that will improve their rest (Cook et al., 2020). Enough rest can ensure employees perform their job duties and responsibilities effectively.
Incentive Trips
Incentive travel refers to an essential part of the Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions (MICE) industry. Incentive trips are used as travel perks designed to motivate partners or employees. They can be defined as corporate-sponsored meetings or trips that create firm loyalty and reward effort. They are celebratory events intended to recognize the efforts of those who exceed or meet production and sales goals. Ultimately, incentive trips are often luxurious and target attractive destinations to nurture team spirit and motivate non-winners (Jiang et al., 2019). Most importantly, incentive travel allows high performers who often experience much stress to re-charge and unwind to prepare for an upcoming business cycle.
The incentive travel buyers are often private sector companies looking to motivate their employees. The end users are workers who spend several days of vacation with all expenses paid by a firm. The requirement for companies that often purchase incentive travel plans is cost consciousness. Companies are becoming more cost-conscious as the economy slumps due to inflation and global pandemics. In addition, other methods of effectively rewarding and motivating employees have gained traction, making employers focus less on incentive trips. Companies avoid expensive and prestigious destinations and emphasize the program’s content and organization quality. Furthermore, countries are providing incentive travel domestically or within regional locations and increasing the number of employees partaking in the program (Davidson, 2019). Ultimately, corporate buyers of incentive travel require cost competitiveness in the various programs they can offer their employees as part of incentive trips.
While companies attempt to look for competitive programs on incentive travel, employees must be satisfied with them to motivate them. Thus, it is crucial to understand what workers need in an effective incentive trip. The choice of destinations is a significant feature affecting employees’ satisfaction with new incentive travel programs. Employees today need the novelty value in the incentive program to create memorable, fun, and engaging experiences for participants. Since the concept of incentive travel has existed for many decades, new incentive types and destinations can revitalize the meaning of incentive travel. In addition, since most high performers travel extensively solely for work-related reasons, incentive travel consumers need new destinations and novel ways of organizing incentive programs (Davidson, 2019). As a result, companies aim to ensure their incentive trips can excite their consumers by introducing original ideas to such vacations.
Buyers and consumers of incentive travel programs need access, destination appeal, and infrastructure. Employees and companies need locations that provide access and infrastructure that allows operations to proceed effectively. Roads and wireless connectivity networks should be evaluated to ensure they meet the highest standards. A location’s reputation is a primary consideration for end users of incentive travel programs (Davidson, 2019). Although world-famous destinations have their appeal, finding new and exotic locations can increase the place’s attractiveness.
Comparison
Similarities
Individual business travel and incentive trips have several similarities that suggest an interconnection between leisure and business tourism. First, those on individual business travel utilize the same facilities as incentive trip travelers. Individual business travelers need access to facilities such as the gym and hotels. Similarly, employees going on incentive trips need access to hotels and gyms (Davidson, 2019). Most facilities are used for similar purposes as leisure and business travel employees need almost the same services.
Second, incentive and individual business travel employees are visitors who require similar destination information. Both individual business travelers and those on incentive trips need access to similar destination information that offers data on a location’s facilities and how to make reservations. The information is provided through the cooperation of tourism services promoters and suppliers. Third, incentive trips and individual business travel people appreciate the need for a comfortable and safe environment. Incentive trips are treated as leisure tourism, and employees need the assurance that a destination is safe to enroll in location-specific programs successfully. Similarly, individual business travelers need comfortable working environments to complete their job tasks effectively. Finally, individual business travel is closely related to incentive trips since business visitors consume leisure tourism, such as incentive trips. Employees of a certain organization often do individual business travel. Those workers can be selected as a part of an incentive travel program (Davidson, 2019). Therefore, individual business travelers consume leisure tourism, such as incentive trips.
Differences
Individual business travelers and incentive trips can access several different services. First, incentive travel uses the facilities and services of the hospitality and travel sectors. It goes beyond the transport, catering, and accommodation industries to provide complete tourist attractions and recreation activities. In contrast, individual business travelers are only provided with transport, catering, and accommodation access. There are no recreational activities and tourist attractions provided by the employer. Second, unlike individual business travel, the suppliers of different tourism services do not require extra infrastructural facilities for destinations that actively provide incentive travel services (Davidson, 2019). Destinations that aspire to attract the incentive travel market do not require the construction of conference or meeting rooms as their use during incentive trips is limited.
Third, unlike individual business travel, the incentive travel market does not consider the element of transport as a medium of arriving at a destination only. Instead, the transport element is considered a portion of the incentive program experience, distinguished by uniqueness, exclusivity, and pleasure. On the other hand, individual business travel views the transport element as a means to an end, which only involves traveling to different locations (Davidson, 2019). Therefore, transport suppliers focus on incentivizing passengers to experience special feelings with services such as onboard entertainment and personalized welcome messages for groups.
Fourth, some differences can be identified as required services. In individual business travel and incentive trips, competitive infrastructure and accommodation play a significant role. However, for incentive travel, sightseeing, restaurants, shopping facilities, touristic attractions, and boat tours are important decision factors. In contrast, individual business travel considers high entertainment and catering quality and unique and competitive event venues essential for effective functioning. The primary decision-making is determined by professional development opportunities and appropriate capacity and infrastructure in individual business travel (Davidson, 2019). On the other hand, relaxation and destination exploration are the major motivations for the destination choice for incentive travel.
Implication for Suppliers
Destinations are an essential part of attracting consumers to tourism services; thus, they must be effectively managed if they meet the needs of leisure and business tourists. There are various forms of destination management that destination suppliers can take to improve their appeal. First, suppliers should market a destination and provide information to enable potential end users to notice the destination’s existence (Kerdpitak, 2019). Second, destination suppliers must plan and develop infrastructure, including transport and venues, since consumers and buyers of tourism services require accessible and appealing destinations.
Third, destination suppliers must strive to ensure the security and safety of each leisure and business visitor are maintained, especially regarding fire safety and crime. All business and leisure tourists agree that their safety and security are top priorities when choosing destinations. Therefore, destination providers must provide adequate security to meet the need. Finally, destination suppliers must ensure that utilities such as water supplies and electricity are reliable. Since such utilities are vulnerable to sudden unavailability, destination suppliers must invest in alternative utilities to increase the reliability of their services (Abdulla et al., 2020). For instance, using borehole water and backup generator can increase client trust that their business events will be uninterrupted.
Venues
Business events, including meetings, exhibitions, conferences, and training courses, happen in venues. A major problem with venue choosing is the high cost that drives firms away from hosting events at prestigious locations. Thus, venue suppliers should offer memorable experiences for a competitive price. In addition, venue providers should offer friendly and quality service facilities suitable for small gatherings (Davidson, 2019). Ultimately, venue suppliers should strive to meet buyers’ needs when they demand something unique.
Accommodation
Buyers’ needs constantly change, and accommodation has to keep up with changing consumer trends. Suppliers of accommodation need to provide a home away from home. Lodging properties have a larger meaning than sticks, bricks, and mortar since a physical facility is constructed and employees are instructed to satisfy guest needs. Accommodation providers need to prioritize the customer first by providing high-quality service and anticipating the requirements of consumers (Cook et al., 2020). In addition, accommodations should be unique and original to make consumer experiences special.
Transport
Transport is one of the essential drivers of the tourism and hospitality industry. Without transport, the movement of people across different geographical areas is impossible. However, transport is responsible for creating resources. Transport providers should increase the efficiency of their services on certain routes to cater to business and leisure tourists. For instance, traveling by air has become tourists’ major form of travel. Therefore, transport moderators must ensure timely flights in an increasingly competitive environment (Davidson, 2019). In addition, hotels improve the efficiency of their transport services for consumers from airports to destination hotels.
Ancillary services (other)
Ancillary services are secondary services and facilities that support main amenities in the hospitality and tourism sectors. As business travel suppliers strive to increase convenience and provide unforgettable experiences, it is critical to provide ancillary services to customers. For instance, a hotel can provide a booklet containing key support services consumers may want (Davidson, 2019). For example, shopping services, tour guides, tour escorts, theme parks, chauffeur services, and car rental are support services that can make a consumer’s life easier and create returning customers.
Conclusion
In conclusion, buyers of business events such as individual business travel and incentive trips have different requirements, which consequently affect tourism product suppliers. Individual business travelers often want proximity, security, and convenience for their consumer experiences. Incentive travelers require uniqueness in their program to be motivated to partake in such trips. Individual business travel and incentive trips have several similarities and differences. For instance, individual business travel requires widespread use of meeting and conference rooms while incentive trips do not. The buyers’ requirements have several implications for suppliers of the tourism product. For example, suppliers of accommodation and venues will need to provide unique experiences to consumers to improve customer retention.
References
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