Acceso usuarios
Judith Mair
Despite the economic importance of the meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions (MICE) industry, it remains relatively underresearched. The area of incentive travel is particularly lacking in academic research and remains without a strong theoretical foundation. Anecdotal evidence suggests that incentive travel is seen as an important and significant reward by organizations and their employees. However, while considerable research has examined how to motivate employees in the workplace, including the use of incentives, there has been little examination of why travel makes such as good incentive. In an effort to address this gap, this conceptual article integrates tourism motivation literature with the literature on employee motivation, with particular reference to expectancy theory. Expectancy theory suggests that the valence of a reward (its attractiveness) is a key component of motivating employees. Travel motivation theory helps to explain which particular aspects of travel make it an attractive reward. The article presents an introductory conceptual framework for understanding the relationship between incentive travel and employee motivations and acts as a foundation for future research in this area.
