Hawaiians are not passive about making Adventure Travel decisions. The challenge for our travel agency is to make it clear that their travel services offer plenty of options. We like things that reinforce our feelings of specialness and want travel designed to fit our individual needs - so customization is very important.
Adventure Travel for Hawaiians means a stimulating, cultural/social experience and want more interactivity in the travel experience. We don't want to hear about panning for gold, we want to do it. Part of the enjoyment of our Travel Adventure Experience is knowing it's unique - that's part of the rush.
What Hawaiians definitely do not want is herding. To many of us, group travel has the faint aroma of a cattle drive. This has prompted some travel agencies to even drop "tours" from their names. Some travel agencies offer group travel that provides group transportation and accommodations, but impose a less rigid structure on our daily movements. Others are trying to increase the fun factor by encouraging Hawaiians to bring our friends with us on vacation. A group isn't a negative when it's a group of our own friends.
Hawaiians find appealing the idea of letting somebody else deal with all the details, but our problem with this is trust. We wonder whether we can trust somebody else to plan our kind of trip. To attract Hawaiian, travel agents must emphasize their expertise and add value that we can't get on their own. Guides must become like personal trainers and demonstrate the skill and knowledge that we will respect and pay for. Public relations efforts travel agents that impart third party or expert endorsement help break through our skepticism. Local newspapers and word of mouth were the best sources of information and persuasion for travel products.
Hawaiians are willing to pay for travel fun, adventure, luxury, expertise and convenience. We are willing and able to do things for ourselves, but we would really like to hire a travel agency to do it for us - if we can trust that they understand what we want and have the expertise to give it to us.
