Resources for Cruises

Cruises

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If you are a company owner, you may want to consider offering an employee travel incentive program that features cruises or offer such trips as a reward for work well done. Employees are more likely to work together or individually to exceed goals if offered an incentive like a cruise, which in turn improves your business. Consider setting your company apart from competitors and holding training sessions aboard a cruise ship to increase relaxation time; employees are interested in attractive incentives. Although these points sound promising, continue reading to learn about the cost, scheduling, family, and documentation concerns involved with offering such an incentive to determine whether it is right for your company.

 

Benefits

According to a survey by Incentive Travel IQ Report, approximately 47.6 percent of respondents’ companies operate a domestic employee travel incentive program. However, just because your company offers travel incentives in the United States doesn’t mean that you are limited only to destinations on land. Offering your employees a cruise either as an incentive for a job well done or as a training opportunity is another possibility.

 

Teamwork

Employees who are offered perks, such as cruises, are more likely to work as a team to meet or exceed goals on a consistent basis. You can use an employee cruise to further encourage teamwork. Even if all your employees can’t go on an extended cruise, you can still offer a dinner cruise or a short cruise lasting two or three days.

 

Improved Performance

If you offer your employees a cruise as part of a contest or a goal-meeting campaign, you may notice that your employees’ performance improves. An example could be that an employee with a perfect attendance record for the year gets to go on a short Alaskan cruise or a cruise on the Mississippi River.

Sales contests, customer satisfaction contests, or a campaign that requires your employees to improve performance are some examples of how you can use a cruise to improve your business.

 

Training Opportunity

Gone are the days when training sessions had to be held in a dark conference room in an office building. You can book a conference room on a cruise ship for your employee training sessions. By doing this, you will give your employees some time to relax and foster a sense of teamwork, while still working on training your staff to be the best in the business.

 

Employee Retention

Employees are more likely to stay with your company for long-term employment if you offer attractive incentives. You don’t have to offer a cruise every year for every employee, but, you can offer a cruise to mark specific milestones, such as a free cruise when an employee hits the 5-year, 10-year, and 15-year mark. You can continue this cycle every five years up until the employee retires. By doing this, you set your company apart from the competition.

 

Pitfalls

While offering your employees cruises as an incentive to do a good job, foster teamwork or provide training may seem like a good fit for your company, there are some things you must consider before you book the cruise.

 

Cost

In order for the cruise to be considered an incentive, your company will have to cover the entire basic cost of the cruise. If you don’t have a port near your company’s office, you will have to decide if the company will cover the transportation cost or if the employees will be responsible for the cost of getting to the ship. You will also have to work with the cruise company to ensure that your company won’t be responsible for additional costs, such as drinks or spa visits, which are often associated with a cruise.

 

Scheduling

For some smaller companies, scheduling time off for employees to take a cruise may be difficult. Even in a large company, scheduling time off for an employee with a highly specialized job position can prove to be a challenge. To help cope with this, consider offering a one-night cruise in your area or schedule a longer cruise during a time when you normally have less business.

 

Family

If the employee you are sending on a cruise has a family, the family should be taken into consideration. This is especially true for single parents who may not have access to childcare during the cruise. You must decide if your company will cover the cost of the cruise for additional family members. In some cases, such as with young children, the cost is likely to be minimal.

 

Documentation

If your company is offering a cruise that includes foreign ports of call, you must ensure that all employees going on the cruise have proper documentation. For this reason, last minute cruises may not be a good option for your company unless you know that each employee already has a passport. Because it takes approximately six months for a passport application to be approved, be sure to give your employees ample notice, allowing them time to prepare.

 

Pricing

Cruises

In a recent study by the Forum Corporation, when customers were unhappy with their vendors due to poor service, 70% of these unhappy customers ended up abandoning the vendors. This means that your company should encourage all your different clients to continue doing business with you by setting up incentive packages, including traveling and cruises.

Cruises can vary greatly in price based on four major factors—length of the cruise, destinations, room size, and the many possible packages for food, drinks, and entertainment. Most basic packages will include some type of food and entertainment and will usually run a total of three days. These will cost between $200 and $500 per person. Longer cruises become increasingly expensive as the length of the vacation increases. The average cost of a 14-day cruise will be between $1,000 and $10,000, but it all depends on the location.

 

Conclusion

Offering company cruises has many benefits. Employees who are offered attractive incentives are likely to show improvement in working together as a team to exceed goals, and they are also likely to show improvement in individual performance. Employee retention is a major plus of offering company cruises; if you offer exciting incentives on a milestone basis, employees will want to stay with your company for a longer period of time. Unfortunately, high costs, scheduling conflicts, family concerns, and documentation concerns all come along with planning cruises, so it is important to take these factors into consideration when deciding to offer cruises as part of your company's employee travel incentive program or as rewards for good work.