Holland America Adds Sales Tools to Travel Agent Site

Holland America Line has enhanced its personalized direct mail and email sales tools at Travel Agent Headquarters (TAHQ) via www.hollandamerica.com. Now, travel sellers have access to more cruise destinations and creative offerings under Holland America Line’s direct-mail marketing program and customized emails for all destinations containing the latest cruise fares.

At TAHQ, travel sellers have access to new marketing tools and an array of other features ranging from news and training to the popular booking tool POLAR Online. Several new sales tools feature personalized direct mailings, Build-Your-Own Email and daily pricing leads to make marketing materials more current. With new free emails, travel sellers can now select and create customized, free emails on all product destinations from Europe and South America to Bermuda and Alaska to Australia/New Zealand.

To create the email, travel sellers choose a destination topic, fares in either U.S. or Canadian currency, and up to five sailing dates, promotional copy and the photo image header. After proofing the final email, 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 emails.

A 2010 direct-mail schedule with sign-up deadlines can now be found at TAHQ. Upcoming direct-mail pieces cover Europe, Mexico and Caribbean, the Southern Hemisphere and family cruising vacations.

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 are provided by Holland America 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 –typically from 100 to 1,000- to an independent party for completion of the project.

Project costs start at 36 cents per piece for production, handling and postage. Reorganized into eight sections for travel sellers, TAHQ provides navigation between sales tools, training, marketing tools, news, recent promotions, Group Advantage Program (GAP) details and access to new and existing reservations through POLAR Online.

The latest training can also be found with Holland America Line’s Signature Webinar Series and HAL Academy training program that features several online accredited courses. Agents can log in to TAHQ with a POLAR Online login.