Hawaii Tourism Study

I’ve been wanting to do an evaluation of a Hawaii activity company for a while now, and I’ve finaly got my chance. Safari Helicopters has been taking people on Hawaii helicopter tours to “inaccessible wonders” in the islands for 22 years. Reading through the elaborate company section, you learn that this is a family run operation you takes pricde in their service and safety. The business itself works by selling  their service directly to clients through their website. I’m guessing this direct sale is more valuable then selling through an activity desk or website which I’m assuming would charge a booking rate of about 25%.

• Selling Services – Direct sales bypass booking agencies.

The site is done very nicely and there’s a lot of information to help make a buying decision including video, photos, description and customer reviews and rating from TripAdvisor displayed directly on the site. I really like this last feature because it gives you the opportunity to see unbiased remarks about what others have experienced. From the reviews you can tell Safari Helicopters is a reputable company selling a good Kauai helicopter and Big Island helicopter tours.

The one place the site fell short was in the booking system. Not that it was bad, but it could definitely be improved which would lead to higher conversion and more sales. Continue reading "Safari Helicopters Takes Hawaii Helicopter Tours to New Heights" »

Uptake is one of my favorite types of websites, a data aggregator (a site that compiles information from multiple sources into one place). If you take a look at their Hawaii activities section, for instance, you’ll see data pulled from Travelocity, Yahoo!, Trip Advisor, Yelp, Epinions and CitySearch as well as other information directly from Hawaii based websites such as HonoluluZoo.org. It’s pretty easy to see how a website like this can be useful, but how do they make money? A representative from Uptake told me that they worked on a CPC model. But if you look closely at their Hawaii romantic hotels or Hawaii family hotels sections, you’ll see a yellow button that says “Check Rates”. Clicking this button allows you search for hotel prices on TripAdvisor, Priceline and Expedia. So it appears that they are also working an affiliate angle.

1. Cost Per Click (CPC) – They use Google Adsense for their contextual advertising. It also looks like they have some internal CPC going when they link out to other websites.
2. Affiliate Model – They use multiple affiliate programs for at least hotels.

Uptakes use of information from multiple sources makes it a winner in my book. You can also see that with a lot of traffic, their CPC and Affiliate models could be very lucrative. After surpassing 1 million monthly visitors in less then a year after their launch in May 2008, they’re well on their way to becoming a profitable company. Continue reading "Uptake Tackles The Hawaii Vacation Market" »

I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Ted at Hawaii Destinations – a Hawaii travel and tourism site which is a guide for independent travelers visiting the islands. The goal of this website, as stated on their about page, is, “to become a respected destination and vacation guide, providing a quality and quantity of information without peer amongst independent websites”. Hawaii Destinations has made a good start with a respectable amount of information on Hawaii travel insurance as well as a nice selection of Hawaii accommodations. The site uses 2 monetization models:

1. Cost Per Click (CPC) – They use Google Adsense for their contextual advertising.
2. Affiliate Model – They use multiple affiliate programs to provide accommodations, car rentals, travel insurance, vacation packages, cruises and activities.

Overall, the site has a nice theme and is easy to navigate. I appreciate the simple straight forward navigation and everything is just one click away. The buttons to “book” and “learn more” are also easy to see which leads to high conversion ratios. Continue reading "Hawaii Destinations Makes a Good Start" »

Summit Pacific Inc. appears to have its roots in the Kauai vacation rentals market. They seem to be expanding into other islands, but their main play in on Kauai with such resorts as Puu Poa, Hanalei Bay Resort and Waipouli Beach Resort. This is an interesting Hawaii travel site to study because the company employs all 4 of our monetization models:

1. Cost Per Click (CPC) – They use Google Adsense for their contextual advertising.
2. Affiliate Advertising – They have affiliate agreements with several rental car agencies.
3. Selling Services – The owner actually books his own rentals on this site, so they offer a vacation rental agency service.
4. Direct Ad Sales – They also post advertisement to owner direct vacation properties.

Summit Pacific has done a great job developing useful content around a Kauai vacation theme. They have info for their guest including activities, golf and even real estate for visitors interested in buying a vacation home of their own. At this point, much of this content is monetized using CPC. What really impresses me, though, is how they’ve been able to take their Hawaii car rentals section beyond CPC into an affiliate program. Continue reading "Summit Pacific Inc.’s On the Right Track" »

Hawaiian Beach Rentals is the largest Hawaii vacation rental company in the state with more than 4,000 accommodations for you to choose from. They use the following business model:

• Sells Services – The company is paid a commission by property owners for providing a booking service for their rentals.

There are two things that really set Hawaiian Beach Rentals apart from other vacation rental booking companies:

1. Their commitment to Internet marketing gives them a huge advantage in traffic and allows them to fill rentals where other businesses struggle.
2. They aggregate vacation properties from multiple agencies which allows them to offer a larger selection of accommodations to their site visitors. The company manages about 400 Oahu vacation rentals of their own, but by working with other property management companies, they are able to offer 10 times the vacation homes and condos then they would normally.

Continue reading "Hawaiian Beach Rentals Has It Going On" »

Hawaii.com is an advertising based Hawaii travel site owned by the Gannett Company whose flagship publication is USA Today. They use 2 Internet business models:

1. Affiliate program – Hawaii.com receives a percentage of the sale whenever they send a user to another website and that user buys something.
2. Cost Per Click (CPC) – advertising where vendors pay every time a user clicks on their ad (a.k.a. pay-per-click).

For their affiliate program, Hawaii.com co-brands with Expedia.com and also uses Pleasant Holidays. This is pretty straight forward on the website. You can search for vacation packages, airfare, hotels and rentals right from the home page or choose package deals from internal island pages.

The CPC’s are setup as ads around content and whenever a client clicks on one of these ads, Hawaii.com receives a agreed upon payment. Continue reading "Hawaii.com Overcharging Clients for Clicks" »

General Description of Work:

The overall purpose of this component is to assure public awareness of, and input to, the overall project … to consider the social and cultural effects of Hawai`i tourism (past, present, and especially future) … and to see if the ideas generated during the project are supported by the overall public in meetings and a survey of residents on all islands. The consultant for this component is also responsible for “overall project coordination,” but just in the sense of preparing a final report summarizing all three components, in a consistent format.

The Infrastructure and Economic/Environmental components are intended to produce some hard facts and figures. They are the “bones” of the Sustainable Tourism project. The Socio-Cultural and Public Input component puts some “flesh” on those bones by analyzing some of the human issues and by gathering resident input. Some parts of this study include facts and figures, but other parts have to do with beliefs and values.

Critical activities include:

1. Developing a public information and input effort, including this website, to deal with all three components of the Sustainable Tourism project.

2. Holding public meetings on all islands.

3. Assembling a Study Group of “stakeholders” from different interest groups – various parts of the tourism industry, environmentalists, Native Hawaiians, etc. – who are meeting throughout the life of the project. They are working on a statement of “Sustainable Tourism Goals and Indicators” which can represent agreement among many groups about how to maintain a good balance of economic, environmental, and social outcomes as tourism changes.

4. Preparing a two-part Socio-Cultural Report investigating evidence about the likely effects of tourism growth and/or change on social factors known to be of particular concern to residents – e.g., crime, housing cost, Native Hawaiian issues, etc.

The first part deals with impacts on Native Hawaiians and was written by a Native Hawaiian advisory group. The second part deals with tourism’s socio-cultural impacts on Hawai`i’s general population.

5. Compiling ideas and recommendations from all the above activities, and then conducting a survey of residents of all counties.

6. Preparing a final report, covering all three components, including recommendations for action by public and private organizations, along with ideas for future studies or public activities that could not be done during this initial Sustainable Tourism effort.

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General Description of Work:

The purpose of the Overview study was to compile an inventory of selected public and private infrastructure, as well as environmental features, in order to establish baseline data for 2000. This component was intended to identify infrastructure/environmental capacity, usage, problems and future plans, compare visitor and resident impacts and define major assumptions throughout the State. This study provides a basic understanding of the conditions and issues related to the infrastructure and environment around the state.  The study addresses the following areas:

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Objectives

The project has seven main objectives:

1. Examine sustainable tourism development in Hawai`i based on various scenarios that consider the quality of life of residents and the quality of the visitor experience.

2. Effectively include input from residents through a public involvement and peer-review study component.

3. Define requirements, responses, and limiting factors for key natural resources and physical infrastructure.

4. Identify mitigating measures or technological changes that can be taken to avoid or negate the limiting factors.

5. Identify relationships that link the impact of visitors and residents on infrastructure, the environment and the economy, as well as inter-linkages between the infrastructure, the environment and the economy.

6. Develop an analytical tool (a computer model) for objective assessment and projection of the outcomes of different scenarios, including different levels of visitor growth and uses of alternative mitigating measures.

7. Develop a tool to conduct policy analysis and planning for sustainable tourism with particular emphasis on the role of economic planning.

Project Area

The study will look at statewide issues and also focus on the four most populated Hawaiian Islands, where the bulk of visitor activity occurs: O`ahu, Hawai`i, Maui, and Kaua`i. The two other populated islands – Lana`i and Moloka`i – will be included to the degree that data permit.

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The Sustainable Tourism Project is representative of an emerging approach in economic development to reconcile the need for economic growth with the quality of life and the protection of natural resources. The World Tourism Organization (WTO) identifies “sustainable tourism” as visitor industry development that has:

According to the WTO, sustainable tourism development meets the needs of present tourists and host regions while protecting and enhancing the opportunity for the future. It is seen as leading to management of all resources in such a way that economic, social and aesthetic needs can be fulfilled, while maintaining cultural integrity, essential ecological processes, biological diversity and life support systems. Sustainable tourism development connects tourists and providers of tourist facilities and services with advocates of environmental protection and community residents and their leaders who desire a better quality of life.

The major product of the Sustainable Tourism Project will be planning and analysis tools, in the form of an information database, a computer model, scenarios and recommendations, that will help policy makers reconcile tourism’s continued contribution to the economy with the need to protect environmental quality, provide infrastructure support, and enhance residents’ quality of life.
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