Economic conditions favor prepaid rewards

In the Incentive Research Foundation's Fall 2012 Pulse Survey, the organization found that businesses are rewarding employees more often with merchandise, gift cards and individual travel as economic conditions disfavor group incentive travel programs. Thirty-one percent of survey respondents indicated they intend to increase the use of gift cards as employee rewards in 2013.

The survey showed that merchandise would see the biggest rise in employee usage, with 36 percent of survey respondents saying they would increase merchandise rewards. Meanwhile, 24 percent of respondents said they had added gift cards to their reward programs, while 17 percent had decreased gift card usage in their programs.

According to the IRF, electronics was the top reward in the merchandise category, followed by golf items, luggage, houseware and open-loop, network-branded gift cards. Seventy-nine percent of respondents used electronics to reward employees, while 59 percent used open-loop cards and 38 percent used closed-loop, retailer-specific cards.

Additionally, 44 percent of respondents anticipated they would "slightly increase" their budgets for non-cash incentive programs in 2013, while 10 percent would "slightly decrease" their budgets for such programs.

The survey of 249 incentive providers, suppliers to the industry and corporate incentive travel buyers was conducted online in August and September 2012.

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