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Travel prizes for sweepstakes and contests are all about generating excitement, brand awareness, and sales. Each year millions in travel packages, vacations, and trips are given away by top brands.
The best part? It’s possible to have a partner assume the risk so that your travel sweepstakes prize is taken care of.
Here is what you should know about travel prize fulfillment to help you get it right the first time:
7 Vacation Prize Tips for Successful Sweepstakes
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Article Contents
IN THIS ARTICLE:
- How to give away a vacation as a sweepstakes prize
- Legal requirements for travel prize sweepstakes and contests
- Here’s why vacation prizes are so popular for contests and sweepstakes
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Do Travel Sweepstakes Need Prize Indemnity Insurance?
Prize indemnity insurance is designed to protect promotions that feature attractive or expensive prizes. Since vacation prizes definitely fall into this category, the short answer is yet.
Even better, working with a prize fulfillment company that arrange insurance coverage for your marketing promotion can also allow you to tap into much larger prizes to give away just a fraction of the cost.
Do you need prize indemnity insurance for your vacation sweepstakes or content?
Also Read >> What is prize indemnity insurance for sweepstakes prizes?
Brands that work with prize fulfillment companies can also avoid paying the full price of the prizes upfront, freeing up their sweepstakes budget for more promotional activities.
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What Are the Most Popular Travel Prizes for Sweepstakes and Contests?
Travel prizes attract participants and delight customers with an unexpected getaway from the ordinary. Beach vacations, family destinations, hotels, weekend trips and more are popular sweepstakes prizes to give away.
Travel prizes generally involve a combination of the following :
- Trip coordination
- Reservations
- Trip itinerary management
Flights and transportation is often not included in the trip cost according to the ARV given in the official rules. As a result, participants may need to organize their own transportation.
Before we continue…
Here a few travel contest ideas to inspire you:
- Show your hometown. Have participants show off where they live with a chance to win a staycation to a local tourist destination.
- Where should you travel to next? Let participants comment and share exciting worldwide destinations they would love to travel to.
- Photos from your best trip: Have fans competition to show off the best trip ever with the winner winning a prize from a co-sponsor’s brand
- Appreciation. This type of giveaway gives a vacation prize as a reward for a job well done.
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Where do sweepstakes and contest companies get the best prizes?
Through exclusive partnerships with companies that are comparable of sourcing prizes. These procurement agencies and travel industry vendors help organize all types of vacation trips from short getaways to week-long vacations to international cities.
Read more >> How sweepstakes prize fulfillment works
Should Travel-related Brands Run Travel Sweepstakes and Contests?
Probably, not. Here’s why:
When it comes to sweepstakes, contests, and giveaways, marketing experts generally recommend to give a prize that will be extremely attractive to your audience.
Part of the attraction is that the prize is unexpected and out of the ordinary.
While you can test it out, it might be make for a boring, low participation promotion.
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What Are the Benefits of Giving Away Travel Prizes for Brands
Brands are seeing major ROI from travel sweepstakes and contests. Travel prizes benefit brands by:
Helps Customers Connect Emotionally With the Brand
There is a reason why travel prizes are popular for luxury brand social media contests: they help customers connect emotionally.
Brands often choose travel destinations and staycation experiences that reflect the personality of the brand. When done correctly, brands have the power to make people feel inspired, confident, and even nostalgic.
Remember?
We went to Tahiti? Maybe not, but here’s why…
Read more: Sweepsify: A Brand Story
Maximize Your Audience With Travel Prizes Everyone Wants to Win
Vacation Travel Prizes can help increase brand awareness online thanks to the the wide appeal of travel sweepstakes and contests among the general public.
Now with opening up your contest and increasing the reach of your campaign, comes the potential to attract sweeps participants, or sweepers, who have solely entered your promotion for the chance to win a trip for free.
Depending on how niche your audience is, the ratio of sweepers to actual customers and genuine potential customers will vary.
This is why we always recommend that brands check to see what the competition has offered for sweepstakes and contest promotions in the past. From researching that data, it’s possible for brands to choose a more relevant sweepstakes prize.
Quick Sweepstakes Tips for Travel Giveaways
Vacation prizes work for certain types of sweepstakes and contests better than others.
Here are the quick guidelines for when to choose a travel prize:
When to use a vacation travel prize:
- Want to reach families or couples (once in a lifetime or romantic getaway)
- Want to provide a “time-off” or “goal-achieved reward” for a contest (employee, academic)
- Want to reach digital nomads or the audience of a digital nomad (to give them an social post worthy adventure for influencer marketing)
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When to use travel prizes to achieve brand marketing goals:
- You want to increase your reach. A sweepstakes or contest can increase brand awareness beyond your brand’s normal niche audience. This can be good for more sales but bad for cost-per-click (CPC) if you run Bing, Google Ads or other paid advertising.
- You want to go viral. Perfect for making a big splash and increasing followers, fans, and participants fast.
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How travel sweepstakes and contest help brands with reputation management:
Ecommerce brands require constant monitoring of their online reviews, testimonials, and overall brand reputation. As a result, a sweepstakes or contests can attract a wave of positive customer experiences to help tide your brand over during high volume sales days
For example, during the holiday season, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Thanksgiving and Christmas customers expect lightning fast customer service along with prompt delivery.
While you’re team works on exceeding their expectations, the brand can use a sweepstakes or contest to help relieve customers’ stress during the busy holiday season.
It’s a win-win for your ecom brand and customers.
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What to Include About Travel Prizes in Sweepstakes Official Rules?
Generally, travel prizes are not designed to be all-inclusive. Winners need to be made aware via the official rules on sweepstakes entry about the exact perks that are included in the prize.
The ARV is a cash value, as determined by the Sponsor, which often uses the purchase price paid for the prize, the Manufacturer’s price, or the advertised prize for the prize.
The ARV also determines whether your sweepstakes needs bonding and registration.
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A sweepstakes company can determine the ARV on your behalf by checking with the company that produces the product or through research to ensure that it’s on target.
Perks Not Included in Trip Costs
Here are some of the perks that are not always included in a vacation travel sweepstakes.
The perks could be a daily breakfast, spa treatments, resort events, early or late check-out, valet/garage parking. Participants should also know that they are responsible for any excess fees or charges incurred during their stay, such as for cleaning or room service.
Do Sweepstakes or Contests Have to Offer a Cash Option Instead of the Travel Prize?
While some sweepstakes do offer a cash option that participants can use instead of taking the travel prize, they typically don’t.
Given that trip coordination often involves multiple vendors, from prize procurement to prize fulfillment, it’s not possible for a sponsor to just pay out cash.
The Approximate Retail Value (ARV) of the travel prize pack for your vacation sweepstakes or contest official rules still needs to be calculated so that IRS Form 1099-MISC can be sent to the winner(s).
On the other hand, if the participant decides to reject the prize, the official rules should state that your brand reserves the right to select a new sweepstakes winner.
Bottom Line: Have a Contingency Plan for Unclaimed Travel Prizes
All vacation travel sweepstakes and contests must give away all of the prizes as outlined in the official rules.
Make sure that you have a contingency plan in place already if the contest winner is unable to claim the prize. Unclaimed sweepstakes prizes for travel sweepstakes tend to happen at a slightly higher rate than prizes in other categories.
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Next Steps
Draft your official rules. Hire a contest management or sweepstakes administration service to assist you in drafting custom rules for your vacation prize sweepstakes.
Don’t use online travel sweepstakes official rules templates! Dates affect availability in the travel industry and the specific terms of that agreement may not be applicable to your promotion.
Looking for a sweepstakes administration for a vacation prize sweepstakes? Sweepsify helps you find top contest and sweepstakes companies in seconds. Create your free Premium account now to get started.
