During this period of uncertainty and restricted travel, companies need to find new ways to incentivise their teams and partners with inspiring experiences. So, Rosewood Hotels & Resorts has launched Rosewood Rewards, a new alternative to group travel that enables businesses to motivate and reward top-performing employees with an individual travel award that can be used at Rosewood hotels and resorts around the world.

We caught up with Rosewood Director of Global Sales, UK, Lisa Selvin Aparicio to find out more….

Can you explain why you’ve launched Rosewood Rewards? Have you offered anything like this before?
This is the first time we have offered individual travel incentive awards for businesses. During lockdown, we quickly realised that clients still want and need to reward their staff, however, the current climate does not allow them to do this as a group.

Rosewood Rewards enables clients, or agencies on their behalf, to buy certificates as a bulk, that can be used by the incentive winners at any of our properties. Rather than simply being a voucher scheme, we want it to be more like a traditional incentive programme even though the winners are not travelling together.

When they come to book their experience, the hotel will know it’s an incentive award, and so the winner would get exactly the same treatment as they would if they were travelling as a group. They can also decide to build on it by taking a partner or their family.

How does it work and who can book it?
Both clients and agencies can buy the reward vouchers – and it’s a minimum $20,000 spend. The gift certificates will be pre-paid, and agencies will receive a commission of 5% or 10% depending on total spend, while corporate-direct clients will receive a 5% or 10% rebate, upon pre-payment.

Each certificate will have a monetary value, decided by the client in advance, and certificates can be either digital or physical. It will be completely up to the winner where and when they use the voucher and there will be no expiry date so they can take it at a time that suits them. Some clients may decide to add in air travel to enable winners to travel overseas, although initially we expect it will be more focused on local and domestic markets while travel restrictions remain, so Europeans will stick to European destinations, Asia winners will go to Asian properties and so on.

How has the scheme been received so far?
We spoke to lots of clients and agencies before launching the scheme in the summer, and there is a real interest and demand for alternatives to group incentive travel. There are lots of industries that still need to to motivate teams to hit their sales targets. We just don’t know at the moment when group travel will come back, so this is a way around that.

When communicating and selling Rosewood Rewards, we really want to emphasise that this is something the winners won’t be able to do on their own or on an annual holiday. This is something they have earned, and they will be completely pampered and get the full luxury treatment, so dinner, bed, breakfast and spa, along with excursions and experiences. The hotel will automatically know it is part of programme and will help tailor the trip according to the winners’ preferences.

It’s also completely flexible in terms of how it’s presented. We had one client that made a personalised travel booklet for their winners highlighting a few of our properties in each continent, with the gift certificate at the end, which was a nice touch.

Are there any particular markets you are focused on?
This is a global programme and available in all of our properties, so we expect to see interest from all of our key markets. The certificates will be in US dollar value as they need to be purchased from our head office, but they can be used anywhere.

Where are you at currently with reopening the properties in the portfolio?
London has reopened this week, Paris opened on 24 August and Italy opened back in July. All of our European properties are now open thankfully, which we are very happy about. We have a couple of properties yet to reopen, for example in Thailand, and there are several in Laos and California that won’t open till next year.

Are you seeing many events enquiries coming through yet?
We’re seeing a little increase in local group enquiries for meetings, but not much in the way of enquiries for incentives. The voucher enquiries are picking up though so that’s great.

How have you adapted your approach to M&E market in the current climate?
Rosewood is taking hygiene and COVID secure protocols very seriously and working hard to minimise risk and reassure guests that are hotels are safe. We’re also trying to show flexibility as well, which goes hand in hand with the safety protocols. It’s all about getting confidence back among both planners and delegates.

We have introduced Rosewood Rest Assured, which gives planners greater peace of mind when booking events in the current climate. Until March 2021, confirmed programs of 10 or more rooms on peak at any Rosewood hotel or resort worldwide will receive flexible cancellation terms that include a return of deposit, a waived fee for one programme arrival date change and more.

When do you expect group incentive travel to return?
Locally, we’re hoping that travel in Europe will start to come back in Q1 next year, but everything hinges on government guidelines and how and where we are allowed to travel. If quarantine is required then I don’t think any clients will want to travel. When it comes to longer haul travel, I think that will take longer to recover, but again it all depends on government guidelines.

Will you continue to offer Rosewood Rewards once group incentive travel returns?
Depending on the success of the programme, I think it’s something we would definitely keep as an alternative for companies that are not comfortable with group travel. People are changing their approach to travel post-lockdown and might prefer to travel with a partner or their family instead of their colleagues, so this provides the perfect opportunity to do that.