Incentive travel is big business in Ireland - worth an estimated £33 million (€41.9 million), and accounting for about 55,000 visitors last year.

According to Bord Failte's Ms Alison Johnston, incentive travel is a reward trip, where staff may have exceeded sales targets for the year. "It's the company you work for saying thank you to you for doing such a good job. It really is to encourage loyalty among employees and staff."

The average spend in Ireland is £600 per head (excluding flights). However, some Americans have been known to spend £4,000 per head, with most Americans spending from £900. The spend from European visitors is from £400 to £900.

Although the British are the largest market here, Americans have the biggest spend per head, because British incentives tend to be tied up with corporate meetings and the Americans stay longer. The European market trips spend less money as they are here for a shorter period of time.

"The business that comes from the States is what we call pure incentive. It's a reward vacation, as they call it in the States, for people who exceeded sales targets and that sort of thing. They would have a much higher spend in Ireland than the British who may only come in for a long weekend," says Ms Johnston.

There are 37 destination management companies in Ireland, which arrange incentive trips for companies. In the States so-called incentive houses operate like travel agencies, but only work with large corporations arranging incentive travel trips for them. The incentive houses often contact the destination management companies here and will give a budget. Sometimes, according to Ms Johnston, there are no budgets at all.

"They want to stay in castles, they want to stay only in five star properties. They want the top end of the market and they want exclusive venues. They want access to venues that normal people couldn't get into. They'll hire the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, for example, for a dinner, or they will have dinner in places that your average person wouldn't normally eat in. They will go to Luttrellstown Castle for dinner or an activity day, and places like that.

"Americans are very big into their golf. They like it more as a holiday, living in the lap of luxury, shopping and doing less. The Europeans tend to be more active when they come over."

Very often, the European groups in particular, says Ms Johnston, request team-building exercises as part of their itineraries. Paintball shooting, puzzle-solving, horse racing, clay pigeon shooting, falconry, cycling, hiking, treasure hunts, rally driving, hurling and turf cutting are all very popular with the European groups.

This form of tourism has been around for about 20 years has really started to grow significantly in the past four or five years, says Mr Johnston. "There has been a huge growth in 2000 to date, over even last year. It certainly is very big business."

There is an overlap between a destination management company, professional conference organisers and event management companies. Destination management companies, Ms Johnston explains, do the whole package; some will use event management companies to set up team-building exercises.

The business travels out of Ireland too and according to people on the industry floor, more and more Irish businesses are offering incentive trips to their employees.

Mr Padraic Gilligan, owner and director of the Delaney Marketing Group, which focuses specifically on incentive travel, describes it is a "we go there, they come here syndrome".

"The very things that we want in a destination, which could be sand and sun, are the very things that people choose Ireland to get away from.

"There are some spectacular budgets out there and companies that would spend £5,000 a head," he says. However, Irish companies would spend from £500 for a weekend to £1,500 for a longer stay.

Mr Michael Caslin is managing director of 747 Travel, which arranges incentive trips to long-haul destinations as well as soccer and rugby matches closer to home. "Long haul is becoming increasingly popular," he says. "Any company irrespective of what type of business they are in can come and ask us to provide some sort of incentive package for their employees. So you can't exactly pinpoint it to any one particular industry. Companies do repeat business on this, so it must be working for them and, if it is, they continue to do it."

The Wallace Travel Group has also identified a rapid increase in the popularity of incentive trips. Although there is a demand for soccer and rugby trips, a lot of trips are golf-oriented. Sales manager Ms Barbara Dempsey says that mainly men are sent on incentive trips, and just 20 per cent of incentive travellers are women. Often Irish companies request teambuilding activities. "It's a bonding-type thing," she says, "they do something together for a few hours and create team spirit, or just even to show that they can work together as teams." They would spend a half day doing such activities.

Mr John Ironside, is a new player to the incentive travel arena. Quest Africa, a division of his Wexford-based company, Quest Beyond, plans to bring companies to southern Africa, which he believes is a growing, versatile destination. He spent nine months last year setting up an extensive contact database and network in Africa.

His trips are a mixture of culture, environment conservation and education and the destinations include South Africa, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Namibia.

He tries to encourage companies to incorporate activities into their programme. "We could create a subliminal type of team-building if they want, where groups would go out and do different things. They are usually planned around a base where everybody has to bundle together and perform some kind of a role in a very nice atmosphere to achieve an end product. That's the team-build side."

One of Mr Ironside's conference facilities is also unusual. It is a conference room with a canvas top and no walls in the bush. He finds that companies like to have some sort of conference facilities - maybe a half day to say what the company has achieved and another half day to outline its objectives for the next year.

Mr Gilligan also finds there is a tendency to wrap the event around some sort of an educational or a sales meeting, and so it's more than just pure incentive. "It creates a positive sense of the whole event from a return on investment perspective. The company feels it is making an investment, not just in rewarding its employees with a good experience from their travel perspective, but also with an educational experience, it would be of benefit to them personally and the company going forward," he says.

The main thing Mr Gilligan tries to get across, he says, is that it is not "a jolly", it's not just a company trip. It is very much part of the marketing outreach of the company, especially if they are dealing with clients and how they can increase sales from that client. When dealing with their own staff it is an investment in the future retention of employees.

Whereas incentive travel was previously linked with the quantifiable sales profession, it is now being used in a much wider context. He says: "One of the key issues on the ground in Ireland is how do you keep staff, how do you keep them motivated, how do you keep them locked in to your company."