We design and manage incentive programs that recognize the people driving your business, creating experiences that feel meaningful to participants and worthwhile to the organization.
Most incentive programs are sold as travel and delivered as travel. Ours start with the behavior you're trying to reward and the culture you're trying to reinforce. Then we choose the destination to serve that, not the other way around.
When the destination comes first, you get a very nice vacation with a corporate dinner attached, and nobody can tell you what it accomplished. But when the objective comes first, the awards night isn’t an add-on at the end of the week — it’s the reason the week exists, and everything from the room set to the seating chart is built to make that moment happen.
We’re an event agency that runs incentive programs, not a travel wholesaler with an events department. The general session, the recognition production, the awards ceremony, the VIP hospitality — that’s our core work, in house, on the same team that booked the charter.
In practice: You get one program manager from kickoff through reconciliation, a budget you make sense of, and a recognition program designed by the same people handling your flight manifests.
Incentive travel is a business trip used as a reward: a company sets a performance target, such as sales, safety, retention, or franchise growth, and the people who hit it earn a multi-day trip built around recognizing them. President’s Club and top-performer trips, dealer and distributor incentives, channel-partner rewards, employee appreciation trips, and customer appreciation travel all fall under it.
It is not a corporate retreat, and it is not a vacation the company happens to pay for. The recognition is the product and the destination is the packaging.
Sales incentives and President's Club, dealer and channel-partner programs, employee and customer appreciation travel, executive and leadership retreats — whatever yours is called internally, the scope below is the same. Most clients hand us the whole program. Some bring us in for the pieces their internal team can't carry, which is often air, awards production, or on-site operations.
Not sure where your team’s role ends and ours begins? We’ll figure that out together.
Tell Us About Your ProgramWe gather people with intention. Every program we design centers on the participants in the room, creating experiences that mean something to them and results your organization can measure.
Incentive programs get planned backwards more often than any other kind of event — pick a destination first, add meaning later. We work the other direction. Four phases, one program manager, and an easy-to-understand budget for every stage.
What behavior earns the trip, who qualifies, and what the company needs attendees to believe when they get home.
Shortlisted destinations and properties with real numbers against them, site inspections where they matter, and air feasibility from your actual field locations.
Contracts, air management, registration, attendee communications, awards production, and the run of show.
Our team travels with the program and runs it. Afterward you get a full financial reconciliation and debrief.
The right destination is the one that fits the group, the budget, and the message. We've run programs across all 50 states and internationally, and we'll tell you when the destination you're attached to might not fit your incentive program.
Caribbean & resort destinations — where a single property can hold the whole program and the destination does some of the work for you.
US cities with air access — Nashville, Orlando, and similar markets, where getting a national field force there doesn’t eat the budget.s — Nashville, Orlando, and similar markets, where getting a national field force there doesn’t eat the budget.
International programs — including passport, visa, and entry documentation support through our travel partners
Cost per qualifier, not cost per room — we price destinations on what the full program actually costs to deliver there.
The destination matters less than most people think, and the air access matters far more.
Every November, hundreds of Sheetz store managers from across the country gather for the company’s annual Year-End Celebration, featuring business updates, store manager recognition, and leadership inspiration, in destinations from Orlando to Nashville to the Bahamas. The program has to carry real corporate content and still feel like a reward.
Special D Events ran it from start to finish for nine years: thousands of international and domestic flights across individual tickets, group contracts, and charters; passport, visa, and documentation support; the general session and recognition production; and white-glove concierge handling for VIP guests. When contract terms needed renegotiating or itineraries shifted mid-program, that happened inside one team rather than across four vendors.
Incentive programs are judged by the people who earned the trip and the finance team reading the reconciliation. Our goal is to make both happy.
I want to personally thank you for all that you have done for us. I couldn't be more thrilled to work with you again! You're like family.
You are always full of ideas, manage the program and logistics with incredible expertise and work through any changes with patience and professionalism.
Most of our incentive clients hire us for more than the trip. Here's the rest of what we do.
Tell us who's qualifying, roughly how many, and what the trip is supposed to accomplish. We'll come back with destination options and a real budget, not a brochure.
Start Your Program Or call us directly at 248-336-8600.Incentive programs get approved in rooms we're not in. Here's something to bring into one
Sales incentive trips and President’s Club programs, top performer and annual recognition programs, employee appreciation trips, dealer and distributor incentive programs, channel partner rewards, customer appreciation travel, executive and leadership retreats, and VIP hospitality experiences. If your program has an internal name nobody outside the company would recognize, that’s normal — tell us what people did to earn it and we’ll take it from there.
A retreat is something everyone attends because the company decided they should. An incentive trip is something a subset of people earned through performance targets, such as sales, safety, retention or other measures.
Destination selection and site inspections, budget development and financial management, venue sourcing and contract negotiation, hotel accommodations, air and ground transportation, registration management, travel communications and mobile event technology, welcome receptions, awards and recognition events, executive dinners, spouse and guest programs, team-building and CSR experiences, local tours, entertainment, décor and event design, audio visual and production, branded gifts, on-site staffing, risk management, and post-event evaluation. Clients take all of it or the pieces their internal team can’t carry.
Per-person cost is driven by destination, length, air distance from your field locations, and how much of the week is programmed. The pieces people forget to budget are air variance across a national group, room upgrades for qualifiers, awards production, and gifting.
Twelve to eighteen months is comfortable for an international program, and nine to twelve for a domestic one — largely because qualification periods have to run before anyone travels, and the announcement has to land at the start of that period, not the end. If your timeline is shorter, tell us and we’ll let you know what’s still deliverable.
Yes. Individual tickets, group contracts, and charter planning, coordinated with our travel partners, including tracking hundreds of itineraries at once, absorbing last-minute changes, and handling passport, visa, and entry documentation for international programs.
No. Special D Events is a national agency headquartered in Detroit and has produced programs in all 50 states and internationally. Detroit is where we also serve as a destination management company; everywhere else, we’re your planning agency and we hire and manage the local partners on your behalf.
