Elie Lores Blanes
President SITE Belgium
Society of Incentive & Travel Executives

Elie’s personal approach has not changed and he feels now is the moment to explain to companies that things are not all that bad and teams still have to be motivated!. Elie feels that the decisive hinge moment of the crisis has not yet arrived, for 2009 not much has changed, the budgets for this year were put together before the actual crisis began. However, the 2010 budgets will be prepared in September of this year and that can be the moment when the real crisis starts.

In general SITE members report a slight downturn in business, travel and incentives are perceived as luxury and will be cut quickly. However it is important that we continue to stress that “incentive” is something people work for and towards, the luxury they get is something that has been worked for, it represents targets that have been achieved and therefore it is in a sense paid for!

The choice of destinations has definitely changed in the last couple of months: less longhaul, more Europe. The way an incentive is being ‘sold’ has also changed: in the past a company would announce a sexy destinations such as Rio, today they announce ‘a trip’ without giving more details.
Another observation is the ‘low profile’ image of incentives: companies still spend the same budgets, but do it in a less conspicuous, less “bling bling” way.