I didn't work in an industry with customers who could not accept travel, and most expected us to cover it, so we did. This was for a one in-person meeting per year.
One program that I support lets all finalists know they have made the cut prior to publicly announcing the finalists (because we have to work with them to get messaging approved about how they use the product, a summary of the company, etc). The winner announcements are saved for an in-person event at the annual customer conference. Mara Schoeppner