Fresh from the IMA Summit in Baltimore, we brought together Lori Cassidy (Co-Founder, Gift A Trip), Jimena Pierdant (Head of Mexico and Colombia at Cashwave, and President of IMA Latin America) and Nicole Dabike (Procurement Director for Latin America and the Caribbean at CarltonOne, joining from Chile).
A well-deserved mention first: Lori and Jimena both received IMA Spirit Awards in Baltimore — Lori for her role in the ITC re-launch and 2026 sponsorship growth, Jimena for building IMA Latin America from the ground up.
| Top takeaways |
|---|
| The award earner isn’t who we think: 60% work in operations or technology, fewer than 10% in sales. Travel is the #1 motivator for every generation, outperforming cash and gift cards. 89% are more likely to stay in their job after winning a trip. Gen Z is harder to move, not easier — but individual travel is still their top reward. Guest flexibility is the strongest single lever in the whole dataset. Latin America needs a different approach: culture and relationships before commercials. |
The mood in Baltimore
Lori opened with what the conference actually felt like: busier. Attendance was up year on year, and the ITC session she was involved in went from sparsely attended in 2025 to standing room only this year.
What she kept returning to was the people, not the programme. “This is probably one of the best organisations I’ve ever been involved in,” she said — crediting the openness and camaraderie with helping catapult her own business forward.
The research that challenges our assumptions
Lori shared findings from Investigating the Power of Incentive Travel Across Generations, a study by Maritz and SITE. A thousand respondents, 186 variables, and a screening requirement that everyone had a genuine opportunity to earn travel in the past three years. These are real earners.
And they’re not who we tend to describe:
- 60% work in operations or technology. Fewer than 10% are in sales.
- 80% earn less than $150,000 USD.
- 75% have been with their company under ten years.
- Fewer than 10% work remotely.
On what moves them: individual travel led at 61% rating it extremely motivating, ahead of group travel (50%), gift cards, points and gala events (44–48%), and merchandise (36%). Travel outperformed cash and every other category, for every generation.
The read: incentive travel motivates a far broader workforce than we’ve given it credit for. If your programme is built around senior sales people, you may be designing for a minority of your audience.
The business case, in four numbers
- 89% are more likely to stay in their job after winning a trip
- 89% feel stronger loyalty to the sponsoring company
- 93% are eager to win again
- 54% say group travel means “a feeling of achievement”
That last one matters most. The sense of having achieved something is doing as much work as the trip itself.
Gen Z is harder to excite, not easier
Gen Z scored lower than older generations across almost every reward category — the exception being merchandise (40% against an average of 34%). The widest gaps were in individual travel and private recognition, the two things we’ve long treated as premium.
The nuance that stops this becoming a dismissal: individual travel is still Gen Z’s top reward. They’re not uninterested. The bar is higher, and two things need addressing in programme design — work-life balance concerns, and the group format itself.
Anne, from the audience, offered a neat explanation: many in this generation have travelled internationally since school. What feels special starts from a higher baseline.
Jimena reframed it from rewards to retention. Younger employees are asking for clarity — clear goals, clear steps, visible purpose — and expect their manager to articulate what progression looks like. Older generations were more self-directed. The cost of missing it is measurable: Gen Z tenure averages two to three years, against ten to fifteen or more. Her caution: guide professionally, without slipping into anything parental.
Five things the data says to change
- Make guest flexibility non-negotiable. The single strongest predictor of how valued and loyal winners feel. Restricting who they bring measurably reduces impact.
- Prioritise novelty. First-time destinations score higher on everything. Familiarity breeds lower returns.
- Design for achievement, not just enjoyment. Build recognition moments into the trip — for Gen Z especially, that connection doesn’t happen automatically.
- Longer trips, moderate groups. Five-plus nights, beach or adventure themes, groups of 11–50. All-inclusive plus activity wins across all generations.
- Broaden eligibility. The workforce winning travel is ops-heavy and multi-generational. Design for them.
Latin America: culture first, commercials second
Nicole tackled why so many global brands want into Latin America, and why so many struggle. “There’s strong interest in expanding operations into Latin America. However, many struggle to successfully enter the market.”
Her diagnosis, and none of it is commercial:
- Culture matters more than people realise. Latin America is not one market. What works in Mexico doesn’t automatically work in Chile, Brazil or Colombia.
- Cultural relevance is essential. A catalogue translated into Spanish is not a localised programme. Relevance means knowing what genuinely carries value in daily life in that specific market.
- Relationships come first. Trust is built before business is done, not alongside it. Brands used to transactional market entry consistently underestimate how long that takes.
For anyone with expansion on their 2027 roadmap: the barrier usually isn’t product or price. It’s assuming a model built elsewhere travels unchanged.
AI, briefly
The panel kept this practical, with the sharpest questions aimed at Nicole:
- If human connection drives retention, is AI-personalised recognition a help or a threat?
- Can a machine-picked reward still feel like it came from a person?
- Where does personalisation stop feeling thoughtful and start feeling automated?
The consensus was less about technology than intent. AI gets the reward to the right person faster. It can’t supply the meaning — and in recognition, the meaning is the product.
Looking to 2027
Two threads to watch:
- Jimena on gift card use among Mexico’s unbanked population, which categories are proving most relevant, and what real participation in LATAM loyalty programmes looks like.
- Nicole on whether recognition budgets end up merged into wellbeing budgets — and what that would mean for our category.