Iran War is Reshuffling Incentive Destinations Around the Globe
Photo Credit: Unsplash / Joshua Olsen
Skift Take
Certain counties and regions are attracting interest as incentive destinations because they’re geographically distant from the Middle East and perceived as safe — but not the U.S.
The Iran war has companies rethinking their destination choices all over the world, according to a new pulse survey of 193 members of the Society for Incentive Travel Excellence. The report used net sentiment scores to determine respondents’ intentions to bring their incentive programs to various regions of the world.
The findings reflect a rotation toward destinations perceived as politically stable and geographically distant from conflict — most notably Europe and Canada. European respondents showed strong positive intent toward Canada as an incentive travel destination, with a net sentiment score of +67% — higher than the +54% score they assigned to keeping their programs in Europe.
“Canadian and European DMOs are well positioned to capitalize, provided they can increase capacity and competitive programming,” the report concluded.
For U.S. respondents, domestic travel scored highest, followed by the Caribbean and Europe. Asian respondents are moving toward Southern Africa and remaining in their own region. For the “Rest of World” respondents (from Canada, Oceania, Mexico, Central and South America, Southern Africa, the Caribbean, and the Gulf States), the strongest positive intent was toward Canada (+46%) and Central and South America (+40%).
Not surprisingly, the sentiment toward traveling to the Middle East was negative across respondents from every region of the world, with the lowest net sentiment score (-82%) coming from U.S. respondents. Mexico also scored low among U.S. respondents, with a net sentiment score of -30%, along with Northern Africa (-55%) and Southern Africa (- 49%).
Negative Views About Travel to the U.S.
Respondents from every region of the world rated the U.S. negatively as a potential incentive destination: European respondents gave it a -19% sentiment score, Asia -33%, and the “Rest of World” -35%. This reflects a broader political response to U.S. foreign policy positioning, the report concluded. “Destination marketing organizations and incentive travel operators serving the U.S. market should treat this as a material risk,” it said.
The research was based on a total of 193 valid submissions collected between March 25 and April 6.
