Susan Tanzman Shares Her Hot Tips on Selling Romantic Vacations to Hawaii

To sell Hawaii is to know Hawaii. Few would deny that selling vacations there – especially romance vacations and honeymoons – depends on knowing the place and the market like the back of your hand. Hence the abundance of Hawaii’s well-known destination specialist programs – the Oahu, Kauai, Maui and Hawaii programs, and The Travel Institute’s Hawaii wedding destination program.

In the second part of a two part series, Susan Tanzman addresses the ins and outs of selling romantic trips to the state. Tanzman, ASTA’s 2005 Travel Agent of the Year, is a certified Oahu Destination Specialist and the owner of Martin’s Travel and Tours in Los Angeles. Part one of the interview, which appeared in our February issue, focused on destination. Part two addresses more trade-orientated aspects of planning a romantic vacation.

How do you get clients to upgrade their room, or even to a better resort?
I play “mother” to most of my young clients who are getting married. These guys have no idea of how to make this trip spectacular; they come to me with a budget. I will literally say to them, “You can stay in this type of accommodation, or you can actually stay in a room where you can watch the sunset and feel romance.” I do whatever I need to do to get them to address that. And I will tell them [that even if it] means cutting one day off their honeymoon to make it spectacular, [they should] do that.

Are there other ways to upgrade clients?
You can have them stay in a less expensive hotel when first arriving, then have them end their vacation at something more splendid, isolated and intimate. So before they come home, they experience the best. I had somebody stay at Kaanapali, a nice resort, $300-plus per night. Then they spent their last two nights at the Hana Maui hotel, and I had them take a red-eye so they got the full day. I made dinner reservations for them at Mama’s Fish House for their last night. They had dinner there, went straight to the airport and came home. They could not stop raving about that honeymoon experience.

On average, what are clients looking to spend on a Hawaiian honeymoon or romance vacation?
Most of the budgets are between $4,000 and $5,000.

How long do they end up staying?
Most romantic or honeymoon vacations are between seven and nine days.

What portion of a honeymoon budget is spent on attractions?
The interesting thing is that as much as a couple might be budgeting “down” for the hotel, they’re willing to spend on attractions in a big way. A lot of agents are really missing the boat by not pre-selling attractions. When they don’t, in effect they send clients to the Expedia terminals in hotels, or to the Expedia website or, more than anything, to the hotel activity desk. Agents can be making anywhere between 15 and 30 percent on these tours. And the tours make such a difference in terms of customer satisfaction. If you learn about what these attractions are all about, you can sell experiences that will make you stand out perhaps more than anything else you do.

Why are the commissions on attractions so hefty?
They’re naturally perceived to be relatively unique, phenomenal, one-time opportunities. But also it’s just a culture of competition. When hotel activity desks make the reservations, they demand somewhere between 25 to 40 percent commission from the actual operators. Agents at the point of origin have less leverage, so they only get 15 to 30 percent – but agents can become almost as much of a goldmine to tour operators.

Who runs the activity desk? The hotel?
They’re usually independent, and they are making a small fortune off the client. And that is because agents have not gotten smart enough to know they could be doing the same thing. They can really enhance the profitability of every trip they sell to Hawaii. My biggest gripe is that they don’t do that.

Are there any other downsides?
[Agents] have literally turned this function over to others who then, in turn, try to steal their clients. Not only do activity reservationists sell attractions; they, too, can check out Expedia and other resources on your client’s behalf. The clients themselves can go on Expedia. You simply should not let them out of your grasp when you have more to offer them – more than you think.

Can agents distinguish and promote their services as superior in this respect?
Pre-selling attractions and activities represent an agent’s opportunity to keep clients. So you’re doing it for yourself as much for them. They’ll see how valuable you are. Agents have the qualitative advantage in pre-selling attractions. You are telling clients which trips to go on and, now, which attractions. Clearly, a lot of people can do the same thing, but knowledgeable agents can offer a difference in the quality of programs.

Do you recommend particular attractions or suppliers on Oahu?
One of the programs that I use a lot is Bike Hawaii. They go to a private waterfall, but not with 60 million other tour operators. By “private” I mean that they have their own waterfall. So when I send my client with them, I know they’ll be well taken care of, I know what the guides will be like, and I know it’s an outstanding company in Oahu.

I also recommend the Island Seaplane Service. It’s the only seaplane out of Oahu. They’re absolutely incredible to deal with. And another outfit that offers one of the neatest experiences is called Wild Side. They go off the west coast. They take only about eight people at a time, on a catamaran. The owner is a marine biologist. When we went out, in addition to seeing turtles and whales, we went swimming in the ocean with a school of 70 spinner dolphins. And one of my clients went swimming with 200 dolphins.

Another great operator is Trilogy, which offers snorkeling and day trips from Maui to Lanai. They’re a case in point if you want to understand the importance of activities. People actually downgrade to budget hotels in order to afford this trip to Lanai, which is about $100 per person. So a family was looking at $400 to $600 for this trip to Lanai, and they did whatever it took to afford it.

So, this happens enough times, and I’m sitting around thinking, these clients are willing to spend $600 or $700 for this ctivity and brave a downgrade in order to do so. Look what they’re willing to spend and sacrifice for their chosen activities! What a goldmine, I think, if travel agents were pre-selling these all the time and making an extra-large commission!

What about more expensive activities, such as helicopter tours? Do you have a particular way of selling the more expensive attractions?
I just sell the company. I’m actually very picky when it comes to helicopter companies. I pick certain companies, sign a contract with them and get my commission on sales. The best sellers will always be the more unique ones. And then there’s a whole category of activities wherein you don’t make money but at least you’re turning your clients on to something phenomenal. For example, on the Big Island there is an incredible chocolate factory, out of Hilo. And then there are the macadamia processing sites, mostly out of Kana.

You’ve said that those kinds of experiences can make an island every bit as attractive as any other. Wouldn’t you say that’s the case for the Big Island?
Yes, indeed. The Big Island has so much besides volcanoes, but most people don’t know what they are. The Big Island lately started a newsletter and website, intended to explain to travel agents how they can better sell the island and what is unique on the Big Island. They’ll give agents an opportunity to be better at what they do – selling travel.

And what does Oahu have in the way of those kinds of experiences?
Well, it has all the cool, sometimes crowded, Waikiki beaches. Yet Waikiki is only part of the story. As I’ve said before, the Turtle Bay resort on the North Shore has 800 acres, with more than five miles of pristine beaches and 12 miles of ocean trails. There’s so much that’s open on the island, but people don’t know that.

How would that be similar on other islands?
On Kauai there are so many activities available that people don’t know about. They have no idea. There is so much to do on that island. The biggest problem agents have is appreciating each island’s uniqueness – what each has that the others don’t, or at least don’t have in equally significant measure. Each one is different, each has something that you won’t find on another island. Agents need to become more knowledgeable about that so that, literally, they can have the opportunity to sell six or seven destinations to Hawaii.