Incentives on the Rebound?

The Incentive Research Foundation (IRF) recently shared insights from its Incentive Industry Trends 2010 survey, which points to slightly rosier times ahead.

"Our sense is that companies may have been sitting on budgets for the past 10 months or so waiting to see how things were going to play out and whether there was going to be more pushback from the media and community regarding incentives," says Mark Peterman, chairman of the IRF Research Committee. Here's just a few of the findings (find out more at www.theirf.org):

• Respondents appear to be more optimistic and consider the economy as having a more positive impact on their ability to plan and implement incentive travel programs when compared with pulse survey results from July and March 2009. In November 2009, 33 percent of respondents were "slightly" to "significantly" optimistic compared to 24 percent in July and 11 percent in March.

• Forty-four percent of respondents anticipate no change with regards to incentive travel program destinations in 2010, while 47 percent of respondents anticipate a switch from international to domestic destinations.

• Approximately 16 percent indicated they expect 2010 budgets for incentive travel programs to increase, while 30 percent said they expect budgets to remain unchanged.