Pulse Experiential Travel: Why Individual Travel Is Becoming a Bigger Part of the Incentive Business
Tapping the Power of Choice
Individual Travel Still Requires Help
A Different Financial Model for Corporate Buyers
Experiences Extend to Major Events
A Business Built Around Access and Service
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Marc Matthews says the pandemic permanently changed what many incentive travel recipients expect, helping drive demand for individualized experiences while creating new opportunities for companies able to combine flexibility with personalized travel support.For decades, group incentive travel has occupied a distinctive place in the rewards and recognition business. Matthews, President and Founder of Pulse Experiential Travel, says his segment of individually selected travel experiences that allow recipients to decide where they want to go, when they want to travel and with whom, has steadily gained traction and now at an accelerating pace. His daughter, George Agnos, who started helping out at the company before college, formally joined the company after graduation and now serves as vice president.
Tapping the Power of Choice
Matthews says individual incentive travel represented a relatively small part of the overall market when his company first became involved in the business 46 years ago. While his business has grown throughout the 2000s, the pandemic accelerated a change that was already possible but had not yet become commonplace. When companies could no longer operate group trips, many experimented with individual travel instead and have now commonly integrate individual travel options with their group meeting strategy.
What happened next, Matthews says, resembled the work-from-home experience. Once people became accustomed to greater choice, many were reluctant to give it up. “People want to do their own things,” he says. In his experience, recipients increasingly want to choose the destination, timing and traveling companions rather than necessarily vacationing with coworkers. Matthews says some corporate clients are consequently adopting hybrid approaches, alternating individual travel awards with traditional group incentive programs.
Individual Travel Still Requires Help
Matthews says giving someone money or points for travel does not necessarily create a complete reward experience. A recipient may have always dreamed of visiting Greece, Italy or France, he explains, without knowing exactly where to go, where to stay, how to get around or which activities best fit his or her interests. That is where Matthews says Pulse seeks to distinguish itself.
According to Matthews, Pulse Experiential Travel has developed a large selection of pre-curated travel experiences designed to provide a starting point rather than a rigid itinerary. A traveler interested in France, for example, might consider Paris, Normandy, Champagne or Bordeaux, with suggested hotels, transportation and activities. From there, Matthews says Pulse can customize the experience by adding days, guests or activities. “We cut out a lot of the legwork for individuals,” Matthews says. He emphasizes that the existing packages are intended as ideas. According to Matthews, if a recipient or corporate client wants something the company does not currently offer, Pulse can develop an itinerary around the request.
A Different Financial Model for Corporate Buyers
Matthews also believes individual experiential travel can address one of the challenges of group incentive travel: budgeting. With a traditional group program, Matthews says companies can establish a budget but may still face changing participation levels, hotel costs, add-ons and other expenses before the program ends. With Pulse travel certificates, he says the corporate cost is established when the award is issued. According to Matthews, if a company awards a $5,000 experience, Pulse invoices the company for $5,000 and assumes responsibility for fulfilling that certificate under its terms for two years of date of issuance.
Matthews says this gives corporate buyers a defined award cost rather than requiring them to reserve money for potential program overruns. For incentive, loyalty and recognition companies, Matthews says the travel experiences also can be fed into reward catalogs through an API much like merchandise or gift cards. He says Pulse structures its program to remain commissionable for incentive travel firms, motivational event companies and other resellers that provide additional services to their clients.
According to Matthews, most of his company’s business comes from the motivational event and meeting firms responding to client requests for business with unique requirements that is both demanding and unprofitable for most to handle on their own.
Experiences Extend to Major Events
Matthews says Pulse applies the same model to major sporting and entertainment events.
Rather than simply functioning as a ticket source, he describes the company's role as creating the surrounding experience. Depending on the request, Matthews says that can include accommodations, transportation, event access and other logistics for events ranging from the US Open and Masters Tournament to the Kentucky Derby, Super Bowl and the recently concluded World Cup. The next is in 2030.
According to Matthews, Pulse’s primary group sweet spot is approximately two to 50 people. He says larger incentive travel organizations sometimes turn smaller programs over to Pulse Experiential Travel because allocating their own staff to relatively small groups may not be economically practical. Matthews argues that special events also involve logistical issues that conventional meeting planners may rarely encounter. Ticket transfers, transportation restrictions, changing venues and difficult-to-obtain access can make these programs considerably different from arranging a conventional hotel-based meeting, he says.
A Business Built Around Access and Service
Matthews says the company’s longevity is another important part of its value proposition. He says the business has operated for 46 years, giving it relationships and resources that are difficult for a new entrant to quickly duplicate. He contends that consumers can certainly search online marketplaces themselves, but corporate incentive programs carry a different level of expectation when the traveler is a top salesperson, customer or other important stakeholder. Matthews says Pulse provides a 24-hour emergency number and immediate access to traveler information when problems arise.
Ultimately, Matthews believes the growth opportunity comes down to choice combined with support. Airfare costs are currently encouraging more regional travel in his business, he says, while still leaving opportunities throughout the United States, Canada, the Caribbean and elsewhere in the Americas. More important, he says, the company is not restricted to what appears in its existing catalog.
For Matthews, that flexibility reflects the fundamental proposition behind Pulse Experiential Travel: provide enough curated choices to make travel easy, while retaining enough human support to make the experience personal. As he puts it, the limitation is not necessarily what Pulse can offer. It is knowing what the recipient or client wants.
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