2022 Incentive Travel Index

The newly released 2022 Incentive Travel Index (ITI) reports that, overall, the incentive travel industry is strong. Recovery is progressing, program design is evolving and there is increased interest in new destinations. While industry-wide trends emerged, the study reflects variation by geography as well as by sector. The ITI enables incentive industry professionals to target the data they need to make decisions to meet their specific goals.

The Incentive Travel Index is joint initiative of Financial & Insurance Conference Professionals (FICP), the Incentive Research Foundation (IRF) and the Foundation of the Society for Incentive Travel Excellence (SITE Foundation) and is undertaken in partnership with Oxford Economics.

“We see good signs of recovery, but these signs vary. While 67% of North American buyers reported they have resumed international incentive travel, only 50% of buyers from the rest of the world are back to travelling internationally,” said SITE Foundation’s President, Kevin Regan, MBA, CIS. “From a verticals perspective, the 2022 ITI study is forecasting positive growth over 2019 for the Finance & Insurance and ICT sectors, but Pharma, Auto and Direct Selling are forecasting static or negative growth.”

“Program design continues to evolve, and we can clearly see shifting preferences impacting program inclusions as a more diverse workforce become qualifiers. For example, we saw wellness emerge as a key program activity,” said Incentive Research Foundation (IRF) President Stephanie Harris. “While activities that promote relationships was the top choice across the industry, we see some interesting differences across regions. A key difference is that sustainability and CSR opportunities were considered more important by industry professionals outside of North America.”

“The desire to travel to new destinations has increased for North American buyers, while the rest of the world indicated they will select destinations closer to home,” said Financial & Insurance Conference Professionals (FICP) Executive Director Steve Bova, CAE. “When it comes to destinations themselves, North American respondents’ preference for domestic and Caribbean destinations are up, with most stating that they will use these destinations more in the coming year than they did in 2019.”

For additional key findings from the 2022 Incentive Travel Index study as well as reports from previous years, visit https://www.incentiveindex.com/.

About the Incentive Travel Index

This is the fourth year of the collaboration between FICP, IRF and SITE Foundation on the Incentive Travel Index, formerly the Incentive Travel Industry Index. With research partner Oxford Economics, the organizations have again created an indispensable annual report on the state of incentive travel, providing data on current and future evolution.

The 2022 online survey, fielded globally from May – July 2022, was customized for five distinct incentive travel professional roles: corporate end user, third party agency, DMC, destination supplier and DMO sectors. More than 1,400 incentive travel professionals, representing 19 industry verticals and 74 destinations, participated in the survey.

The 2022 Incentive Travel Index is sponsored by:

Champion Level: Accor, Destination Canada

Prime Level:  Hilton, United

Principal Level: IMEX Group, Prezzee