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Q: How does the Hawaii Destination Specialist lead referral program work?
A: HVCB offers consumer referrals (not leads) to qualified Hawaii Destination Specialist / Ke Kula O Hawaii graduate travel agents. That is, we give your name and contact info to prospective clients in your area who request info from the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau on planning a trip to Hawaii.
Here’s how the program works:
- A consumer in your area calls our 1-800-GoHawaii number or visited our consumer website www.gohawaii.com and requests a free official Hawaii vacation guide or information on Hawaii as a vacation destination.
- He or she is then given the name of up to three Hawaii Destination Specialists in the area based on zip code, postal code, time in the HDS program, and other factors such as time since last referral.
- Hopefully, that consumer contacts you as a “Hawaii Specialist” and books a vacation with you.
Please note however:
- HVCB's referral program refers consumer to HDS agents not agencies.
- HVCB does not provide agents with the consumer's contact information. Rather, the agent's contact information is shared with the consumer at time of inquiry.*
- While we do refer you as a Hawaii Specialist it is also not guaranteed that a consumer that we refer to you will mention that referral when they come in and book a trip with you.
- On the HVCB consumer website www.GoHawaii.com, you will see travel agency listings under the HVCB member section entitled "Travel Professionals." These are not Hawaii Destination Specialist agents but rather travel agencies that are active members of HVCB and who as a benefit of their annual HVCB membership fee receive an online and print listing with us.
- Any agency can be listings on GoHawaii.com by becoming "business member partners" of the HVCB. A variety of membership options exist beginning at $500 per year for the basic annual members. If interested in HVCB membership for your agency, please contact our membership department at membership@hvcb.org or call 808-923-1811
*In the past when a consumer called our 1-800-GoHawaii number or visited our consumer website www.gohawaii.com and requested the free official Hawaii vacation guide, he or she would be given the following option, 1) "receive the name of a certified Hawaii Destination Specialist travel agent in your area," or 2) "give us your contact info and be contacted by a Hawaii specialist travel agent in your area."
If option #1 was chosen, we would send that person's contact info to an HDS agent in the area rotating the leads evenly and fairly among all HDS certified agents in that area (based on zip code/postal code). The HDS agent would receive an email advising that they had a lead and where to go to get that info).
If that agent did not pick up the lead in 72 hours the lead would be passed to a second agent in the area, then if another 72 hours passed and the second agent did not act on the lead, it would be passed to a third agent. If that agent did not pick up the lead, we would send a letter to the consumer stating something to the effect of, "here is a list of three HDS certified agents in your area..."
If option #2 was chosen, "give me a list of HDS agents in my area,” we would send the consumer the name of an HDS agent in his or her area for the consumer to contact at his or her leisure.
Research performed in early 2004 indicated that a majority of consumers were requesting option 2 - the list - over option 1 - have an agent contact me. In addition, of the leads distributed to agents, less than half were being followed up on so the program’s consumer lead element was sunsetted.
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