Vast shifts in the explosive travel industry have resulted in unlikely opportunities for new companies, who are swooping in to pick up highly lucrative spots in Hawaii travel and elsewhere. Think of it as Hawaii travel meets financial services, social products, and commerce. There are companies that simply know almost everything about us that can tailor Hawaii vacations uniquely to each of us. That includes where we go, what we do, how we pay, and everything we want. This is another fascinating new development in travel and how we buy Hawaii vacations, for example.
The latest players in Hawaii travel aren’t those we know or expect.
There are companies that know us very well and with whom we have deep relationships that are coming to the highly lucrative travel industry where Hawaii plays a prominent role.
Have you seen Chase Travel?
Honestly, we had not. We happened upon it and were shocked to find the bank and credit card company has its eyes firmly set on travel, where you can expect to buy Hawaii vacations big time.
Chase has made some incredible statements about travel, including that they could sell $15,000,000,000 of travel, yes, that’s billions, in the next two years. They said that $1 of every $3 in Chase transactions is travel related!
And it isn’t just Chase. Others, including Citi Bank and Capital One, are also planning to sell you Hawaii vacations. While Bank of America’s Travel Center is another one that will quickly evolve. That site now says, “Take off on a new adventure. Over 200,000 hotels and resorts. Over 200 airlines. 24/7 phone support when you travel.”
FinTech and travel leverage creative new partners.
Most of these new travel players partnered with various companies to get a leg up as they started. Chase is connected with booking.com, while Capital One is partnering with Hopper. Hopper says it has become a billion-dollar company with 100 million users who access its services via its 8-year-old mobile app. Hopper moved into new products like cancel-for-any-reason trip insurance coverage, among many other diverse offerings.
And if you think this is just a few giant banks, it isn’t. Others are swooping in too.
Look for some of the most creative Hawaii deals emanating from these players, including free Hawaii vacation financing, among other new options.
Amazon Travel will undoubtedly try selling you a Hawaii vacation.
That’s another massive financial technology company that knows nearly everything about us following years of experience with us. Amazon will be a travel giant, a tour company, a trip-insurance provider, and more. They have the power to control pricing as they do in their online product store. When they move in, everything changes. Case in point, Editor Jeff recently signed up for Amazon Pharmacy. Why? They sold him a prescription toothpaste for 1/4 of what any other store, including Costco, sells it for.
The key is these companies’ pre-existing relationships with us Hawaii travelers.
These banking companies know us all too well. They see where we spend money, and they know it is on Hawaii travel. They want to finance it, get their cut of it, and they’ll, without doubt, be primary players in this sector sooner than you think.
The plan is to use that knowledge to do what’s called cross-selling. Thus you can expect various perks to be offered to gain your loyalty. This gives all of these companies an extreme competitive advantage compared to legacy companies that sold us vacations, such as Expedia and Booking. Our relationships with those OTAs were far more limited, and their knowledge of us was far less. And the next winners in Hawaii travel will be based on the deep relationships they have maintained with us for years.
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Aloha!
I regularly buy vacations (sometimes with air, sometimes not) from Costco. I welcome the competition. I really love the Costco option. They usually have perks, like no resort fees (yay!) and daily breakfast included. I’ve done Maui at the Hyatt Regency Kaanapali, Sheraton Waikiki (a fave!) and most recently Four Seasons Bora Bora (including Air Tahiti Nui). That last one was really special. We felt like royalty! We went in the shoulder season between Tgiving and Xmas and had the place to ourselves!
Hi Theresa.
Nice travels there! Thanks for sharing.
Aloha.
Aloha BOH Bro’s
Currently booked our annual October stay on Maui using the new Citi Travel with Booking.com.
I booked it last April currently nothing can touch the price I got by 3,000 plus dollars. Can be canceled up to 10 days before travel date for 100 percent refund.
Could have done better, but DW said Deluxe Ocean View please.
As a note was on Hawaii’s Tourism website current daily arrivals to Maui are running more than 3,000 fewer then this time last year. Is covid travel surge over or is pricing people out starting to take hold.
Thing is my current booked trip to Maui with flight, rental car and resort stay is coming in $1,500.00 less then last year.
Hi Richard.
Way to go. Happy travels. We’re glad you are returning this fall.
Aloha.
Great!!! More bargain tourists looking for a cheap vacation on Amazon 🤦🏻♂️
Serious question gentlemen…isn’t the new tourism board supposed to focus on less tourists with higher daily spend average?
What has become of that?
Thanks so much
Hi Chris.
Thanks for your many comments. As for HTA, we haven’t heard much of late about their current mission.
Aloha.
Thanks for responding
Have a great week guys
Chris, there aren’t enough high spend tourist willing to come to Hawaii to make up for any reduction in average tourists. Too many choices for travelers and high spend tourist can go to even the most remote and costly locations.
Hawaii needs to make all tourists feel welcome.
That’s what I read but it’s likely not going to work out that way.
Can’t wait!
So are Amazon and banks offering Hawaii vacation packages currently?
Beware buying anything from Amazon, Target or Walmart from 3rd parties. Many items such as your toothpaste are fake. I don’t buy anything from those vendors that goes on or in my body
How can you tell if they are fakes? I use Amazon Target and Walmart for OTC items such as name brand vitamins?
I normally buy all kinds of things on Amazon walmart but I recently bought a name brand toothpaste without looking at an expiration date and my mouth was burnt for a week. Its ok now, but I learned a lesson. I will only walk in local now and look at dates on everything. I had no idea that expired toothpaste would be sold recent, and also that it could do such damage.