Broadline adds to its Incentive Tourism product line

Broadline has been active in the field of incentive tourism right from its inception in 2002, offering reward trips for foreign business clients. Since then, Broadline has developed many different programmes in order to increase tourist interest in Estonia as a destination.

Unfortunately, as a result of the rapid economic growth seen in 2007, the price level of local services and products in Estonia and the other Baltic countries became one of the highest in Europe. This in turn brought about a situation where clients started preferring better-known and more exotic destinations, to Estonia’s detriment.

The current changes in the global economy have had a favourable impact on the development of Estonia as a destination for incentive tourism – the prices of local services have become significantly more competitive and new measures in developing the state tourism marketing sector have translated into a much higher profile.

Broadline’s Incentive tourism director Neeme Kari says the new products are edutainment activities spotlighting Estonia. “In developing Incentive services and products, we have proceeded from the special aspects of Estonia as a destination and we explore how they can be combined with various exciting activities. In addition, at our clients’ request, we have also developed many team-building and other educational and entertainment programmes that can be applied in different environments and for groups of different sizes," said Kari.

Broadline’s patented Edutainment trademark allows a company’s employees to be trained and enlightened at the same time through integrated activities.

“The Edutainment concept continues to gain popularity as the pressure on budgets for employee reward trips and training is making clients look for new solutions how to effectively achieve several goals in the course of one event. It is a concept in which activities aimed at developing skills and personal traits of employees can also be integrated – not only entertainment,” said Kari.

In spite of the increased interest in incentive tourism, Kari still sees a few problem areas that are a cause for concern for the business area. “Unfortunately the possibilities for travelling to Estonia are still worrisome, especially the low number of direct flights. Visitors and corporate clients often arrive from different countries for the same event and do not want to have to switch planes, as this wastes time and makes the travel more expensive,” said Kari.

Broadline’s Incentive products have received favourable attention from the Tallinn City Convention Bureau for a number of years. This year as well, the agency selected a number of products offered by Broadline, which will be published on Tallinn’s website devoted to the possibilities of incentive tourism as well as in the print catalogue.