A recent survey conducted by The Eastside Rooms shows that travel-based financial incentives play a significant role in international and domestic destination selection for PCOs (professional conference organizers). The results, from both international and domestic PCOs, indicate a demand for destinations to support conference bids with incentives, such as free local public transport or subsidized taxi rates, as they seek to attract organizers and their attendees.
When asked if “travel-based financial incentives from destinations impact choice of destination?”, 20 percent of respondents answered "always," while another 39 percent stated "most of the time." Only 7 percent indicated that such incentives had “no impact” on their decisions.
“It is clear from these findings that travel incentives are not just a ‘nice to have’ but for 59 percent of PCOs they are a significant factor in their destination decision-making process,” says Leanne Bladen, director of sales and marketing at The Eastside Rooms. “Destinations that support conference bids with travel incentives are positioning themselves as more accessible and desirable, particularly in today’s competitive events market.”
The survey also included insights into domestic travel preferences and perception differences between delegate needs and those of organizers. To that point, the results show that PCOs prioritize easy travel access: 64 percent state that they believe travel for attendees should include one transfer or less. However, only 36 percent of attendees agree, with 64 percent willing to make two transfers and 11 percent open to three. This suggests that attendees may be more flexible with travel requirements than organizers anticipate.
Further differences emerged in terms of travel time. Only 24 percent of organizers think delegates should spend more than four hours on travel, whereas nearly twice this amount (42 percent) of attendees expressed willingness to travel up to six hours and a surprising 11 percent will spend eight hours on the road to a domestic event.
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