SITE’s International Board of Directors (IBOD) and Senior Leadership team embarked on a day of industry education as part of the association’s 2024 Executive Summit in Muscat, Oman.
The day, which attracted over 100 local registrants, featured a range of panel discussions and an on-the-spot incentive design workshop, all led by SITE senior team and IBOD members.
Encouragingly, students from local Omani universities jumped into the day’s discussions and provided fresh insights into the future of incentive travel in their stunning up-and-coming destination.
Here were a few takeaways on how future events can best engage and tap emerging industry voices, based on our experience in Muscat.
Demonstrate support from the very top
Full kudos can be given to SITE President Karim elMinabawy, who has made supporting future incentive travel leaders a highlight of his SITE presidential term.
Karim voiced this onstage during his panel, the second session in the day, making sure that students felt welcome and appreciated, and comfortable sharing from the outset. Other board members followed his example throughout the day, highlighting and making specific efforts to praise contributions from students during different sessions.
Especially at a high-level event with a title like “Executive Summit,” these small gestures go a long way in building belonging and ensuring everyone in attendance that they’re welcome and included at the day’s event.
Karim also gave practical examples during his panel of how company leaders can and should encourage younger employees’ contributions as part of routine business activities, giving other executive-level attendees actionable ways to be sure this is part of how they work with teams in their own offices.
This is the first key learning SITE will be sure to carry forward, when thinking about future education design — so that Young Leaders continue to feel welcome at SITE events and are confident their voices are welcome.
Explore multiple engagement opportunities
Also present in this year’s Industry Education Day audience were Omani incentive travel leaders who took part in a CIS course delivered in-person in Oman a couple of years ago by IBOD member Michael Dalton.
Michael made sure to acknowledge this cohort’s presence, and thanked them for taking advantage of this year’s education day to keep building skills and knowledge about the incentive industry.
This demonstrates how important it is to offer different entry level points, that serve as inclusive opportunities for individuals to enter discussions and forums at whatever level they feel is comfortable and most appropriate for them.
Doing so also signals the advantage of offering multiple touchpoints as an association and important incentive travel voice. This helps create a natural pipeline of opportunities to re-engage and keep building relationships in the region, as Oman’s prowess as an incentive travel destination continues to advance and grow.
Deliver tailored offerings, reflective of and responsive to younger audiences
Attracting, engaging, and meeting the needs of younger professionals is a longstanding commitment SITE shares with the industry — demonstrated by activities like CIS mentioned above, and the association’s dedicated Young Leaders Program.
Another reflection our team took away for future consideration is the possibility of offering special tracked programming at future industry days so that students can ask questions perhaps more focused on career-building rather than company-building, given where they’re at in their incentive industry journey right now.
Catering content and select offerings to younger generations offers an opportunity to think about other differences these newer, often younger voices might represent as well. Interestingly, for instance, a 2023 article in the Times of Oman reported that 60 percent of bachelor’s degree holders in the Sultanate of Oman are women.
With younger voices also potentially representing wider shifting demographic trends, then, it’s crucial that programming be tailored so it’s responsive and reflective of exactly who it needs to serve.
