Holland America's Travel Agent HQ Offers New Tools & New Look

Wednesday, 01 July 2009

Travel sellers can now design and order personalized direct mail brochures and e-mails at Holland America Line’s  www.travelagentheadquarters.com, the premium line’s all-inclusive resource center for travel industry professionals.  The re-designed Web site offers easy access to create dynamic new marketing tools for travel sellers as well as to a vast array of other helpful features ranging from news and training to the popular booking tool POLAR Online.      “These are the most cost effective marketing tools in the cruise industry,” said Richard D. Meadows, CTC, executive vice president, marketing, sales and guest programs.  “It takes minutes to set up and pennies to implement.  And everything comes back to the agency for leads, follow-up and closing the sale.”   Travel Agent Headquarters (TAHQ) is Holland America Line’s resource center for travel professionals.   Reorganized into eight easily manageable sections for travel sellers, TAHQ provides quick navigation between sales tools, training, marketing tools, news, recent promotions, Group Advantage Program (GAP) details and access to new and existing reservations through the booking interface POLAR Online.  The latest training can also be found with Holland America Line’s Signature Webinar Series and award-winning HAL Academy training program that features several on-line accredited courses and has graduated more than 9,500 travel agents to date.  Agents can log in to TAHQ with a POLAR Online login.    Customizable Direct Mail Simplifies Color Brochure Production The new customizable direct mail program offers travel sellers the opportunity to put a personal touch on four-color promotional mailing projects at a reasonable cost.  An agency registers under the Customizable Direct Mail tab under the Marketing Tools pages and follows instructions to add company information, logo, phone number, contacts and personalized sales messages.  Full-color itineraries, pictures, maps, pricing and product copy is provided by Holland America Line in a mock-up to be approved by the travel seller.  Payment is made by credit card and the travel seller submits a mailing list to an independent party for completion of the project.   Project costs start at 36 cents per piece for production, handling and postage.   “While we typically are seeing quantities of 1,000 being ordered by travel sellers, there is no minimum or maximum number with our customizable direct mail program,” added Meadows.  “If an agency has 100 top prospects for a particular destination, this is an inexpensive way to reach out to them.”   Promotional mailings currently cover the Caribbean and Mexico, Alaska and cruises in the Southern Hemisphere.  New regions will be added regularly with enrollment and production deadlines.    Building Free Marketing E-Mails Easy Too Under the new e-mail function, also in Marketing Tools, travel sellers can select and create customized, free e-mails on several destinations.  Agents choose a destination topic for the e-mail and then select a currency in either United States or Canadian dollars, up to five sailing dates, promotional copy and the photo image header of their choice.  After proofing the final e-mail, the travel seller will receive a pop-up window with the full HTML code to be inserted into the software used by the agency to blast e-mails.