Nature abhors a vacuum, and apparently
so does the Society of Incentive & Travel Executives. Just six
months after the SITE Foundation (the society’s research and
education division) splintered off and changed its name to the
Incentive Research Foundation (or IRF), SITE introduced the
International SITE Foundation, a new group with a slightly
different mission.
IRF will remain focused on research
that benefits the entire incentive industry, explained Ira Almeas,
CITE, president of IRF’s board of trustees and president of Impact
Meetings & Incentives, based in East Hanover, N.J. According to
Almeas, IRF relinquished the SITE name when it declined a request
by the society to raise funds. Instead, SITE’s new foundation
(abbreviated as ISITE) will do fund-raising and will focus
specifically on incentive travel.
Jerry McGee, chairman of ISITE’s board
and president of the Newport Beach, Calif.-based Ambassadors
International, said future research by ISITE will aim to determine
what percentage of organizations globally use incentive travel. IRF
is working on its own industry profile for the U.S. incentive
market as a whole (i.e., more than just travel).
At press time, a financial agreement
hadn’t yet been reached between SITE and IRF. Almeas said IRF had
offered seed money to the new foundation but was not legally bound
to do so. SITE was mum on the details of a potential agreement.
“Once the legalities get out of the
way, the two foundations can coexist in a friendly manner,” said
Bob Vitagliano, CITE (above), the new executive director of ISITE,
a former CEO of SITE and principal of V Associates in Wilmington,
N.C. “In a sense, our overall goals -- which are to grow the
industry -- are exactly the same.”