Last month, the Incentive Research Foundation (IRF) held its 24th Annual Education Invitational conference in Maui, Hawaii, and wowed over 200 incentive planners.
It all began with Maui’s aloha spirit and diversity, and the beauty, fabulous service and exceptional food of our host hotel, the Grand Wailea Resort. Add in events at two other Wailea resort hotels, the Fairmont Kea Lani and the Wailea Beach Resort, as well as the inspirational destination experiences—from rappelling down waterfalls and zip lining to golfing, snorkeling and cultural and culinary tours—and the conference was a huge success.
The conference also gave planners four days of networking and a day to earn CMP and SHRM continuing education credits in areas of relationships, increased wellness, risk management, design patterns and info on neuroscience studies. Planners also had the opportunity to make a difference by participating in CSR activities where they painted ukuleles and donated them and children’s books to the Boys and Girls Club of Maui.
Maui is an optimal choice for incentive planners, particularly those that are interested in a safe, culturally inspiring and culinary-forward food experience (be sure to check out our September issue of Prevue for a Maui on location feature that spills the beans on this).
The IRF has authored over 100 research studies in the past 20 years—17 are in development for this year—that help planners gain professional and personal insights and practical knowledge. You can dive into numerous subjects on their website.
In the meantime, here are three takeaways from the Annual Education Invitational to get you started:
Wellness Is Top of Mind
Wellness continues to be of paramount interest to planners personally, but there is a challenge in executing wellness into meetings due to a disconnect with corporations.
Reimagining Rewards
The first neurobiological study looked at how humans respond to non-cash awards and determined that those types of awards are more impactful than cash.
Hotel-Planner Relationship
We partnered with the IRF last year to ascertain where planner vs. hotelier views converge and differ around any number of given topics. You can read what transpired here.
