Robin Paisley and Sonja Chilcott of incentiveworks
Patrice Bell and Rafael Villanueva, touting the charms of LAS
Show me the money! How much can you 'earn' in a minute?
Reggie Kieda, Panama's greatest fan
At a booth on the far left of the sprawling exhibition hall: a pile of cupcakes so adorable it would be a crime to eat them. In the middle, a guy in business attire in a transparent booth grabbing at floating dollar bills. At the end: A lady taking off her clothes. To music, of course.
And in between? Exhibitors from Mexico to Montreal, Russia to RCI. Welcome to incentiveworks!
If you want to find out the latest trends in incentive travel destinations, hotels, cruise lines, airlines activities, premiums and generally thinking-outside-the-box stuff, there’s nowhere better than incentiveworks, held annually in Toronto.
This year’s show encompassed a whopping 67,000 square feet in the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in the heart of the city. Some 3,000 attendees were anticipated to visit some 700+ booths: truly the biggest show of its kind in the country.
“There’s nothing like it in Canada,” said Sonja Chilcott, host and publisher of Meetings and Incentive Travel Magazine. “This year we’re celebrating our 20th anniversary and, like every year, people come for the knowledge but above all the networking.”
The meetings and incentive community is a tight one, she explained, and even in 2011 face-to-face meetings carry huge clout - an opinion shared by every person I spoke to on the floor.
“Las Vegas is the perfect incentive destination since we don’t try to sell you something that’s three years old,” Rafael Villanueva of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority told me. “We are truly ever-evolving. And this winter WestJet has added Hamilton, London and Prince George as gateways, bringing their lift to 77 flights per week – by far our number one international carrier.”
A little less mainstream were Linda Hardardottir and Porarinn Por, representing Reykjavic Incentives. “Almost everyone who has stopped by our booth has been pleased and surprised to see us here,” they said. Iceland may be the perfect spot for your next incentive group: take four times weekly lift from Toronto in the summer, add a mere five hour flight and incorporate novel activities such as golf and river-rafting under the midnight sun, and you have an incentive your clients will talk about for years.
Reggie Kieda was promoting Panama – always dear to her heart. “We’re a bit undiscovered – but more accessible now thanks to charters from Canada which mean you can do a 3 or 4 night incentive, without having to connect in the States. We’ve got the upscale brand names incentive groups – such as the Trump Hotel – plus beaches, shopping, and urban and also a rainforest experience, not to mention the canal.”
Royal Caribbean’s Lindsay Richmond loves the show because “It’s one big sales call. We get to meet face to face, and I think Canadians are much more relationship-oriented.” Hot at Royal Caribbean? Baltic cruising (“Everyone’s asking about it”) and getting creative with groups numbering from 16 to (gulp) 6,000.
So: back to the cupcakes. They’re part of a very cool spousal program from Le Dolci where participants learn how to make and decorate cupcakes. The floating money? A hugely popular showstopper sponsored by Marriott: You have a minute in the sealed booth during which a fan blows dollar bills around. What you grab you can keep. (Hint to gents: undo your shirt for maximum stuffing.) And the lady shedding her clothes? A burlesque artiste, teaching folks to be sexy.
Must say the show attendees were, so to speak, skirting her demonstration – perhaps afraid she’d call them onto the stage with her - but it was a great lesson in how creative minds can make an incentive truly memorable.
