May 2022

Fighting Inflation with Promotional Travel 

It’s always something. First, it was COVID and now inflation is driving travel and vacation costs higher, pinching vacation budgets and even causing cancellation of long-awaited vacations. The good news is consumers are seeing the value in promotional incentive travel and they are becoming more responsive to cost saving offers.   

New data showed inflation in the United States has risen at the fastest rate since 1981, and the travel and tourism industries have already felt the force of the changes. The 12 month increase in cost to consumers to travel finds a rise in gasoline 48%, hotel rooms 25%, airfare 23%, and rental cars 22.5%. Incentive travel removes those cost concerns for consumers and allows those family vacations to occur.   

True Incentive is known for delivering product innovation and quality service to B2B clients. We just don’t try to sell you incentive certificates. We guide you to the most cost-effective programs for your needs. With a growing presence in online and face-to-face retail applications, we are proud to offer a dynamic catalog of incentive products such as land vacations, cruise vacations and airfare designed to impact a company’s marketing and sales objectives.   

In another move to make promotional certificate redemption easier, and to mirror the consumer’s familiar booking procedures on travel sites, our certificate holders can now take advantage of a complete redemption processing 24/7 on Hotel Stay Incentive Certificates, similar to our existing procedure for our Airlines Certificate. Our online booking facility was launched on April 15 and has since processed over 37% of the booked reservations since its launch. Consumers are guided throughout the booking process with access to the reservation center and a reservation specialist when needed.   

True Incentive is very excited about this new feature and plans to continue to develop online resources to better serve all incentive customers.   

Meet Our Team

Ilene Youngblood—Director of Business Development

Ilene has been with our company for more than twenty years! Most clients know her as she’s managed their accounts for years. She currently also oversees client support and works diligently with our B2B clients providing training, education and ensuring client satisfaction. 

She is well regarded for her hands-on approach to treating clients as her number one priority. Her goal is to keep clients happy via initial training, regular updates on product and service enhancements, review and monitoring of our business clients’ customers incentive certificate activity and ongoing dialog concerning any client or customer (certificate users) issues or concerns. 

Ilene certainly is in the right industry. During Covid, she and Larry, her husband of 30 years, made a bucket list to travel to all 50 states. Their goal is two trips a year. A native Floridian, Ilene’s twin 24 year old sons are now on their own, making Ilene and Larry empty nesters, except for two adorable dogs. 

Ilene holds a B.A. from University of South Florida in Business Management and Psychology. She is a resident of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. 

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