Rethinking Incentive Travel in a Changing Social Landscape – lessons from Bowling Alone

by Pádraic Gilligan, Chief Marketing Officer, SITE

The leadership of most professional associations—SITE included—are likely familiar with Bowling Alone (2000), Bob Putnam’s seminal work on America’s declining social capital. Association leaders turned to Putnam’s research to better understand the precipitous drop in membership numbers.

The Decline of Social Capital: Putnam’s Timeless Insight

Putnam attributed this trend to a broader cultural shift, where Americans increasingly disengaged from social institutions—clubs, societies, teams, federations, associations, and church communities. He linked this phenomenon to several factors: the rise of technology, generational changes, suburbanization, evolving work patterns, and growing economic inequality.

Fast forward to today, and Bowling Alone has returned to the spotlight with Netflix’s documentary Join or Die, which revisits Putnam’s thesis more than two decades later. The documentary is compelling, especially for those of us in the business events industry, as it offers a stark reminder of the challenges associations face in remaining relevant.

Free Time in Incentive Travel: Reflecting a Broader Trend

Interestingly, Putnam’s findings offer valuable insight into one of the latest trends in incentive travel program design: the growing preference for “free time.” This was prominently highlighted in this year’s Incentive Travel Index. In recent surveys by SITE and the IRF, incentive travel qualifiers—the employees who earn a spot on these programs—prioritized “free time” over structured, company-wide activities. As Putnam observed, this mirrors a broader trend where individuals prefer personal downtime over communal experiences, opting for “me time” or moments with loved ones, rather than social interaction with colleagues.

A Challenge to Incentive Travel’s “Soft Power” Objectives

This trend presents a significant challenge for incentive travel professionals, particularly when considering one of the key objectives of such programs: fostering community, company culture, and workplace relationships by bringing employees together in inspiring destinations. This “soft power” function of incentive travel—nurturing connection, fostering engagement, and building camaraderie—has increasingly become a core objective, sometimes even overtaking the traditional goal of delivering a measurable ROI for the sponsoring company.

However, for this “soft power” to be effective, participants need to interact and engage with one another. If they’re busy with “free time” or “me time,” those opportunities for meaningful interaction diminish. There’s no chance to strengthen workplace relationships, no casual conversations where colleagues discover the human side of their corporate leaders, and no shared experiences that convey the company’s culture and values in a visceral way.

Rethinking Social Engagement: Competitive Socialising as a Model

This issue has been on my mind for some time, and it resonated even more when I came across an article in The Financial Times titled “Competitive socialising lures Britons from pub.” It seems that while Americans may be “bowling alone” (or not bowling at all), Britons are flocking to venues that promote social interaction in new and engaging ways. The number of bowling alleys in Britain is rising, as are urban mini-golf courses, escape rooms, and venues offering multiple activities. Interestingly, these activities are often replacing traditional pub culture, with more people socialising earlier in the evening and drinking less alcohol.

According to Nick Greenwood, interviewed in the FT piece, “When you go to a pub, you feel like you have to have a drink. This (Sixes Social Cricket) is more inclusive.” The shift to “competitive socialising” offers a different framework for bringing people together in a way that’s fun, inclusive, and engaging—without relying on traditional forms of social interaction like pub gatherings.

Adapting Incentive Travel to a Changing Social Landscape

For incentive travel professionals, there’s an important lesson here. As the preference for “free time” grows, we need to rethink how we design programs that still achieve the goal of fostering connection and community. Perhaps the solution lies in creating experiences that blend “free time” with engaging, low-pressure social activities that encourage organic interaction—activities where participation feels voluntary rather than obligatory.

Incentive travel, at its core, is about creating memorable, shared experiences. If we can adapt to this shifting dynamic—finding the sweet spot between structured interaction and personal freedom—we can continue to deliver programs that not only reward but also connect, engage, and inspire.