tions, so we recognize the importance
of the face-to-face time we do have with
travel agents and make an attempt to be at
any kind of trade show that’s in the market, because it’s a great opportunity.
TW: Are you doing more webinars now
than in the past?
Are fams still an
important component of your
relationship with
agents?
‘No matter where or when an
agent is calling Gogo, they’re
going to get an answer from a
Gogo employee.’
Kish: We are doing more webinars than we have
in the past. We
don’t currently have one for Hawaii, but
we plan on having one by the end of the
year.
whom we took around. It’s like a fam trip,
because you’re getting the opportunity to
go and do sightseeing and see the different
properties. Back in the spring, we had one
in Fiji and had 100 agents join us there. It
was the largest group of U.S. travel agents
that have gone to Fiji at one time, so it’s a
good opportunity to open up the
world to travel
agents. And the
more product
they learn, the
more they’ll be
able to sell.
We’re also doing a lot of fams. We don’t
have one right now to Hawaii, but we do
cover a variety of different destinations
whenever the opportunities are there.
T W: Do you plan
to host a fam in Hawaii anytime soon?
Kish: Yes, we do. We are looking to put
a very big focus on Hawaii for next year,
and that would be part of the strategy that
we roll out.
Getting the air to the destination is always a challenge. We’ve actually been doing a lot of “meet me in the destination”
type fams where the agent will [book]
their own air and they’ll come to meet us
in the destination, and they’re very successful. We just put one out for Tahiti, and
it sold out in a day. Because we have a very,
very broad product range, we’re trying to
diversify where we have fams going to.
Hawaii is a great destination. I think for
us to be able to help agents learn about
Hawaii would really help them to better
sell that destination. … We’ve noticed
Maui has always been a big destination,
but Honolulu is starting to close the gap
with everything they’ve done there with
the [Waikiki] Beach Walk. They’ve really
done a phenomenal job, so anybody who
hasn’t been there recently really does need
to go back and visit.
We also do our learning conferences.
We just got back from a learning con-
ference in Jamaica that had 150 agents
[Hawaii] really offers something for ev-
erybody: somebody who’s looking for the
beach, somebody who’s looking for sight-
seeing, somebody who’s looking for ad-
venture. It really does have a lot to offer,
and I know the state of Hawaii is putting
a lot of effort into their marketing and
advertising, so this is a great opportunity
for people to revisit the destination.
AUTHENTIC. HAWAIIAN.
Give your clients a genuine Hawaiian experience with Hawaiian Airlines.
They’ll feel the warmth of the Islands in everything from our roomy
widebody planes to our award-winning service.
WWW.TRAVELWEEKLY.COM
OCTOBER 25, 2010
