Most incentive travel programme owners believe their incentives deliver strong business results, but few are confident they can prove it, according to new research from the Incentive Research Foundation (IRF).
The report, Measuring Incentive Travel Program Effectiveness, found that while 85% of programme owners rate the impact of their incentive travel programmes on business objectives as good or excellent, only 4% say they are very confident their measurement approach accurately isolates that impact. A further 32% describe themselves as fairly confident.
The findings suggest that many organisations continue to rely on attendee feedback and event satisfaction rather than business performance metrics, leaving incentive programmes vulnerable to scrutiny from finance and procurement teams. Fewer than one in four programme owners currently track return on investment or cost-benefit analysis.
Programme owners believe senior leaders see strong value in incentive travel, but finance and procurement teams are much harder to convince. Only one in three said those stakeholders highly value incentive travel programmes.
Stephanie Harris, president of the IRF, said: “For an industry that has evolved in so many ways, there is still a surprising lack of consistent measurement.
“Measurement efforts still tend to focus more on attendee satisfaction and event execution rather than on business performance or long-term behavioural change. This lack of metrics that prove business impact can leave programmes vulnerable to scrutiny from finance and procurement stakeholders.”
While increasing sales revenue remains the primary objective for most incentive programmes (68%), organisations are far more likely to measure participant satisfaction (62%) and attendance (45%) than commercial outcomes. Revenue improvements are tracked by only 40% of respondents, while just 23% measure ROI or cost-benefit analysis.
The biggest obstacle to better measurement is uncertainty over how to measure outcomes effectively, cited by 48% of programme owners. More than half (54%) also admitted they rely on informal or anecdotal approaches to evaluating programme success, with only 39% using structured KPIs and pre-planned metrics.
Despite these shortcomings, incentive travel budgets remain resilient. Four in five programme owners reported stable or growing investment, with a median annual spend of US$3.8 million and almost half expecting budgets to increase over the next two years. However, the report warns that without stronger evidence of business impact, programmes could become more vulnerable to future scrutiny from finance teams and new senior leaders.
The research also found an opportunity for closer collaboration between programme owners and third-party suppliers. Agencies and other partners place greater emphasis on demonstrating business impact and justifying programme investment and are significantly more likely to measure ROI. However, they identified limited access to client data and a lack of agreed KPIs as the biggest barriers to more robust measurement.
The IRF concludes that the industry needs more standardised measurement frameworks, clearer KPIs and stronger data sharing between stakeholders to demonstrate the long-term business value of incentive travel.