2026 Incentive Travel Index发布：不确定性成奖励旅游策划者首要挑战

Skift Take

Disruption has become the norm as incentive planners brace for continued uncertainty in 2027. 

When the SITE Foundation and the Incentive Research Foundation asked incentive professionals about their top short-term challenge in 2025, 20% pointed to the mood of uncertainty. A year later, that percentage has nearly doubled. According to responses from 2,017 professionals across 83 countries in the 2026 Incentive Travel Index, conducted in partnership with Oxford Economics, 38% of planners agreed that uncertainty is at the top of their lists of concerns. 

“Disruption is no longer the exception, it’s the norm,” said Hasan Dinc, SITE president and managing director at ODS Turkey, during a press conference at IMEX America.

Here’s a look at five key data points from the research: 

1. Incentive spend per person was up 7.8% to $5,500, almost twice the 4% increase from the 2025 report. Buyers in the technology sector reported the highest average spend in 2026 at $6,000 per person.
   
   With half of buyers reporting last year that budgets would match inflation and just 25% saying they would outpace inflation and the current inflation rate for September at 3.7%  according to the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, this points to significant budget pressure among planners.
   
   The biggest budget allocations were 26% to hotel, followed by 19% to air and 15% to F&B.
   
   
2. More than 60% of respondents stated that geopolitical instability is already impacting the destinations they use. The region with the most buyers (85%) experiencing disruption was Western Europe, followed by APAC at 80%.
   
   More than three-quarters of respondents (78%) said that when a destination hits the headlines for the wrong reason, relationships and experience help them interpret the facts vs. the noise. A full 65% said they would reconsider a destination once disruption settles.
   
   Another top qualifier for destination decisions is personal safety. One in 4 U.S. buyers now cite “perceived as welcoming and friendly to U.S. qualifiers” as a destination must-have — a new top-tier criterion.
   
   
3. The winners among destinations are going to be new locations that companies have not used before, as cited by 69% of respondents. In addition, 36% are turning to all-inclusives, 35% to resorts, and 32% to high-profile/long-established properties.  
   
   
4. Securing airlift and airline capacity has become a much more prominent near-term challenge, cited by 40% of U.S. buyers compared with 12% in last year’s Index. Direct air access was considered a must-have by 26% of respondents.
   
   
5. 80% of US buyers are using or planning to use AI for destination research and planning, a significant increase from 58% in 2025. This is reshaping every aspect of planners’ roles, from content creation (64%) to lead adoption (58%).

See the full report here and compare the findings with last year’s report here.