by Pádraic Gilligan, Research & Consultancy, SITE & Co-Founder, SoolNua
I travelled to Athens recently to speak at a gathering of meeting and incentive travel professionals, organised by Hosts Global, one of our industry’s foremost and leading DMC consortia.
I was asked by my friends Kurt Paben and Tina Gaccetta to speak on trends and found myself introducing my keynote with reference to Jim Collins’ business book from 2001, Good to Great: Why some companies make the leap … and others don’t
Since its publication, 24 years ago, many of the steps that Collins calls out in his compelling analysis of why some companies significantly out-perform the market have become key phrases in management-speak today – eg, “First who, then what”, “Get the Right People on the Bus” and so on.
The phrase that that I called out, however, was “Confront the Brutal Facts (Yet Never Lose Faith)”, a phrase he distils from “ the Stockdale Paradox”, a concept named after the US Admiral who survived almost 8 years of extreme hardship and torture in a Vietnamese prison camp.
“You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”
I started with the quote from Collins to provide the over-arching frame for any “trends” that I was calling out. Trends are trends, after all, you spot them when they’re larvae, follow them as they morph into caterpillars and transform into butterflies before finally flying off into the big blue horizon. Trends come and go. They’re not seismic shifts or grinding movements of the tectonic plates involving a radical alteration to the very surface upon which we live.
So what’s happening now is not a trend. We’re actually in the midst of an inflection point like the invention of the printing press or the dawn of the Renaissance in Italy or the birth of the Age of Enlightenment or the invention of the internet. The Argentine-Italian, Jorge Bergoglio, aka Pope Francis, called it out in November 2023 when he said:
“What we are living through is not simply an epoch of change, but it is the change of an epoch”
The characteristics of this new epoch are outlined cogently in a short but punchy recent article in Monocle magazine by Gorana Grgic senior researcher at ETH Zurich’s Center for Security Studies. The status quo ante – the previously existing state of affairs – that defined the past 80 years of “peace in our time” is over, replaced by great power competition with China and the US at its core.
The global landscape, she contends, is split into 3 blocks – the “global” West (the US and its Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific allies), the revisionist powers, or Crinks – China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and the global swing states. This “bloc-iness” is already determining where we travel, trade and interact and this is the new normal.
Finally, Grgic states that as long as trust in governing institutions remains low and frustration with political leaders remains high, populism will continue to be an effective electoral strategy and visionary leadership—leadership rooted in justice, truth, and democracy—that prioritizes not only national interests but the well-being of the entire planet and humanity as a whole will be marginalised.
Following a rather chaotic post-COVID bonanza, our industry is now set to face massive challenges in the months and years ahead, and depending on where we live in the world, these challenges could be existential. Geopolitical tensions, economic uncertainty, environmental concerns, and shifting societal values are converging to create a landscape that is more complex than ever before. Remember VUCA? Well, it’s well and truly back – on steriods this time!
We can already see, from the Incentive Travel Index (ITI), that uncertainty about the future is increasing dramatically amongst incentive travel professionals. Corporations are becoming more cautious, staying closer to home, with planning cycles shortening and budgets tightening significantly.
One of the most noticeable consequences of this heightened caution is the shift in program design. Instead of curating truly transformative experiences that offer participants an encounter with another culture, language, or way of life, many programs are reverting to the lowest common denominator—defaulting to predictable, easy-to-execute options focused on sun, sand, and sea.
While these experiences may offer relaxation, they lack the deeper, lasting impact that comes from cultural immersion and meaningful connection. This trend risks undermining the very essence of incentive travel, which is meant to inspire, motivate, and broaden horizons through exposure to something new, and profoundly different.
Yet, even as we confront these brutal facts, we must hold steadfast to the faith that we will prevail. Incentive travel has always been about more than just rewards; it’s about inspiring, motivating, and transforming people. In times of uncertainty, these outcomes are more crucial than ever.
What does this mean for us as industry professionals? It means doubling down on resilience, innovating with purpose, and building stronger, more adaptive partnerships. It means being transparent with clients and suppliers about the realities we face while remaining solutions-oriented. Most importantly, it means embracing the Stockdale Paradox – facing the brutal facts without losing faith in our ability to navigate through them and emerge stronger.
Yes, the epoch is changing. And yes, the challenges ahead are daunting. But as an industry rooted in human connection, celebration, and aspiration, we are uniquely positioned to adapt and thrive. Let’s confront the reality head-on, keep the faith, and continue to create transformative experiences that matter.
