Incentive travel apps are an exciting and innovative companion for incentive event participants. Entegy Partner MCI Australia are experts in incentive experiences running over 6800 meetings and incentive events annually. Recently they designed and created a stunning app for a luxury European cruise which included key travel details, program, accommodation, optional tours, currency converter and key contacts.
Chloe Barnes, Digital & Innovation Project Manager for MCI Australia highlights the extensive app experience they created for the client: “This was the second app that MCI has produced for this client and the first time an app has been used for this incentive program.
“This event, a luxury European cruise, went for almost two weeks, with multiple destinations, tours and activities during that time. Given the amount of information to be communicated for each destination and each tour, the app was far more convenient than any other method – printed hand/guide book, emails, website, etc. Information could be updated at any time before departure, and it made changes onsite simple to communicate.
“Push notifications were used to communicate key information without bombarding participants while they enjoyed their holiday. Participants found the convenience very helpful – having all the information easily accessible from their phone, rather than digging through an inbox of old emails.” Chloe said
The app was a crucial component to the attendee experience and MCI planned a thorough app adoption campaign to ensure all attendees accessed the app.
“As this was the first time the app was used with this program, the overall engagement was better than expected. Almost all participants downloaded and used the app. Compared to other events where attendees sometimes view the app as an optional information tool, this app was viewed as the key point for all information. It allowed participants to simply enjoy each day as it came, without having to remember what was coming up for the next two weeks. It also helped that this was such an enviable program to be involved in so participants were already positioned to want more information about the event.” Chloe said.
Incentive events put a huge emphasis on the attendee experience and are less focussed on ROI for exhibitors or sponsors. Chloe explains how they approached the app strategy to suit the different objectives: “We approached communication in a ‘help yourself’ kind of way. We included as much information as possible in the app so it was easily accessible, but left push notifications for key announcements. This allowed participants to be as involved as they wanted. For some events, we are trying to drive app engagement because of sponsors or exhibitors, however the aim for this event was simply to provide an experience that participants wanted to be a part of. For that reason, they didn’t have to be in the app, but everything was there when they needed it.”
The app design was premium and prominently featured the stunning destinations of the cruise. Chloe commends the flexibility of the Entegy Suite and user-friendly functionality: “The app is presented in a way that is user-friendly and easy to navigate. The native branding components allow for alignment with the overall event brand and custom page headers add a unique touch to content within the app. The features of the app are easily transferable to an incentive program, especially with features like embedded weather, customisable schedule, and external content.”
Finally engagement was high on the agenda for the tour with many participants coming from different organisations.
“The Activity Feed in the Attendee Connect element was a great tool for building a sense of community amongst the group. Participants qualify individually, from a variety of different organisations, so while there is common ground, most of the group don’t know each other. Each participant also has a unique itinerary, depending on the specific tours and activities they choose to do. While the participants have all qualified for the same overall program and there are points of overlap, the experience of the trip will be different for each person. The activity feed was an easy way to provide an avenue for sharing those unique experiences with the rest of the group.” Chloe said.
Outcomes:
20,364 page views.
Program, delegate list and notifications most popular pages.
95% app adoption.