Hawaii Seeks a Marketing Company To Attract Chinese Tourists

The HAWAI‘I TOURISM AUTHORITY (HTA) is seeking a destination marketing company to attract more tourists to Hawaii from China. The Hawai‘i Tourism Authority, is a government agency of the state of Hawai‘i responsible for strategically managing the states’ efforts with respect to the tourism sector of the economy in order to optimize benefits for Hawai‘i while integrating the interests of visitors, the community and visitor industry. Budget is $2,000,000 dollars.

They seek an agency to:

• Develop and deploy brand management plan that will increase traveler and visitor expenditures for the Hawaiian Islands;
• Integrate activities with the travel trade (retail and wholesale) and consumers through multi-faceted, traditional and non-traditional means;
• Develop and facilitate partnerships or other relationships with Hawai‘i’s visitor industry; and,
• Promote Hawai‘i as a Meetings, Conventions and Incentives (“MCI”) destination.

They seek a brand management plan to do the following:

• Drive visitation and increase travelers and visitor expenditures for the Hawaiian Islands.
• Achieve and exceed micro measures and KPIs such as: Total Expenditures, Per Person Per Day Spending, Number of arrivals, Average Visitor Length of Stay, Island Distribution of Visitors, Air Seat Capacity, Advertising Activities, Public Relations Activities, Website Performance, Social Media Metrics. Any interested applicant must submit KPI worksheets for Leisure and MCI, attached as APPENDIX 5.
• Target lifestyle market segments that have the greatest measurable return on investment.
• Continue to focus marketing on markets that have high-spending visitors and market segments that have higher trip expenditures.
• Collaborate with Hawai‘i’s visitor industry to optimize results and leverage resources.
• Create campaigns that reinforce the unique attributes of the Hawaiian Islands.
• Maintain the cultural integrity of the Hawaiian language, customs and practices, music, dance, cultural and historic sites, and imagery in all marketing materials.
•  Increase awareness, familiarization, and understanding of the diversity of Hawai‘i’s people, place, and culture.
•  Continue to develop campaigns that distribute arrivals across all islands.
•  Maintain and develop new air service to Hawai‘i.
•  Stimulate and grow market share against competing destinations.
•  Stimulate business during shoulder periods. (See the Annual Research Report on http://hawaiitourismauthority.org/research/ for more details on your individual markets.)
•  Employ the use of technology (for example, mobile apps, gamification) to promote Hawai‘i, engage the consumer, and enhance the visitor experience.
•  Promote Hawai‘i cruise line industry.
•  Promote Hawai‘i as a Meetings, Conventions and Incentives (MCI) destination.
•  Participate in the annual Spring February/March Marketing Update, HTA May Meeting, and the August/September Tourism Conference in Honolulu.
•  Focus marketing and enhance product development to build desire to visit during shoulder- season.
•  Strengthen marketing that will increase attractions and activities– spending.
•  Expand research efforts to analyze long-term travel trends to identify segments of high value and next generation of travelers.
•  Develop brand awareness in the future generation of travelers.

The full RFP can be seen here.