Nov. 19, 2024
Water pistols or graffiti, locals are mighty miffed in many destinations right now. Try crossing the Rialto Bridge in August or getting on a French ski lift at New Year, and you can see some of the problems. Yet, it goes beyond issues of convenience. Housing local families is increasingly hard, driving residents out of their communities. Local grievances are entirely understandable.
These destination economies cannot easily decouple from their tourist models without causing great hardship. Whist incentive travel cannot fix the problem entirely, the characteristics of a quality incentive trip should act as a blueprint for the wider travel sector. So, five lessons of incentive travel that should guide mass market travel:
Whilst it is utterly overrun in August, try visiting Venice in November. Guests get a magical experience with navigable bridges, restaurants without queues and artwork that is actually visible in galleries. The days are shorter, but the temperatures aren’t repressively hot, and locals are visible on the streets. Incentive travel in the shoulder seasons helps to create more stable employment cycles while offering greater choice and better accommodation rates.
The scourge of the wider travel industry, all-inclusive hotels are business models that do the least for the local economy. They decimate incumbent tourism businesses while bleaching the visitor experience of anything meaningful. Economic desertification occurs around all-inclusive hotels and resorts. They offer seasonal employment, but in many cases, these people previously worked in thriving supply chains. Quality incentive events operate at the other end of the spectrum, with group dinners away from hotels and local entertainment and suppliers brought into the experience.
Regional cultures thrive when incentive travel Pounds, Dollars, or Euros flow into suppliers. Think Venetian walking guides, coasteering guides in Mallorca, or private Flamenco shows in Seville - these are deep dives into a destination's fabric while helping to make it economically viable. Impactful incentive events offer programmes entwined with the destination and a region’s identity. This type of tourism makes locals prouder and (ideally) wealthier.
Independent hotels are as frustrated by private letting as they are with all-inclusive hotels. The private letting business was noble in principle, but it has decimated the affordable housing market in many destinations and is stripping the soul from communities as locals are priced out of the market. The best incentive travel events include iconic boutique hotels with ties to the destination - they never access private housing stock.
News of the mass tourism protests has been exaggerated as an existential threat to the entire tourism sector in some quarters. The narrative needs to change to one where the positive impacts of tourism are dominant and form a blueprint for the wider industry. Quality incentive travel programmes can involve substantial budgets. This spend has the potential to make meaningful impacts on the destination economy where supply chains are local, employment opportunities are good, and where women and minorities are well represented at senior levels in the local suppliers.
Incentive travel and the wider industry both share issues with carbon footprints, often associated with getting to and from the destination. There can be issues of waste and environmental degradation. But as pointers go, the incentive travel segment offers a defined path for mass tourism to sort out its act. The beauty of the solution is that it is better for both the visitor and the destination.