We are excited to announce the recent launch of Virtual Honeymoon’s newest addition – Virtual Vacationing – on April 10 at the Travel Agent Forum in Las Vegas,
along side their VR partner ExplorVR, Virtual Vacationing was launched with some 700+ travel agents attending!
Travel agents specializing in Vacations
While Virtual Vacationing’s main concept is interactive destination matching for Vacations, the new site does not focus on romance as the other two sites do, Virtual Honeymoon and Virtual Destination Wedding.
“We realize that not all getaways are about romance, sometimes it’s about vacation travel with family and or friends and they too can be confused about where to go on their getaway.”
The perfect client to use this interactive matching tool, is one that is “all over the map” or says something like, “we don’t know where we want to go on our getaway, maybe some place warm and tropical?”
Virtual Vacationing is an interactive destination matching tool, Travel Specialists use on those time-consuming clients that are “all over the map” find their top two destination matches and virtually experience it before booking, thus closing the sale!
This interactive tool SAVES TIME, gets Couples EXCITED & ready to BOOK!
Our software is very intuitive, using scoring + algorithm to search & match destinations, combining 360*VR technology, we are revolutionizing the way SMART TRAVEL AGENTS sell Travel!
If your a Travel Specialist and are interested in finding out how this VR interactive destination matching tool can help you or your travel business,
check out Virtual Vacationing, they are offering a 30% discount through the month of May 2018 for all their brands.
To find out more information and select the best match for your business, check out all their brands and become a affiliate and start working smarter!
Robin Hawkey, owner of Virtual Honeymoon, was recently interviewed by Travel Weekly’s Senior editor, Jamie Biesiada about how she came up with the concept for this VR interactive matching tool, and how its solving problems for hundreds of Travel specialists in the romance travel industry.
the travel industry most trusted magazine source! See below a copy and link to the article.
It’s a problem most agents face on a regular basis: Clients, old or new, want to go on a vacation, but they don’t know where.
Or, maybe they know they want to go “somewhere warm and tropical,” but they haven’t narrowed it down beyond that. With a literal world of possible destinations, the qualifying questions begin.
The situation is one Robin Hawkey knows well. A former agent who specialized in romance travel, she often had clients come to her with little to no idea of where they wanted to go on their honeymoon.
“It’s our jobs as agents to sell them, to match them to the right property,” Hawkey said. “But honestly, when you’re just talking about the destination and trying to narrow that down, that can take weeks, months of your time, and it’s back and forth.”
And sometimes, a much worse scenario plays out: An agent helps clients pick a destination, then they disappear and book it online themselves.
Enter Hawkey’s solution: Virtual Honeymoon.
Robin Hawkey, owner of Virtual Honeymoon
Using her experience as an agent, Hawkey has created a destination-matching service in the form of an easy online quiz agents can present to clients. The quiz comes on a white-labeled website agents can customize, and it includes destination guides. Hawkey no longer sells travel, instead devoting herself full-time to the company.
Agents first present their clients with a 17-question quiz.
“These are the questions that we would ask if they were sitting in front of us, if we were trying to figure it out, and we pretty much have it down to a science,” Hawkey said. “It’s working extremely well.”
At the end, the clients are presented with their top two matches based on criteria such as travel style and budget, and they can click through to destination guides on those spots.
The website and its components start at $19.95 per month or $191.52 per year (a demo version is live at www.demo.virtualhoneymoon.com). It includes a back-office feature agents can use to make changes or additions to the site that Hawkey said is very easy to use.
Hawkey has added virtual reality (VR) videos to some of the destination pages, and more are being added. She is encouraging agents to purchase headsets to use at in-person client appointments and events like bridal shows.
She has partnered with Canadian company XPLR VR for the videos and directs agents to that company if they wish to purchase headsets. The price point is around $100 per headset.
“I truly feel if [agents] are not going to get in on [VR], they are going to get left behind,” said Hawkey, who describes the videos as “the next best thing to being there.”
It’s something she has had personal success with. While Hawkey no longer sells travel, she decided to do one final destination wedding for her daughter’s best friend and sold the couple on Jamaica using a VR video.
Virtual Honeymoon has been available to agents since last October. Hawkey has not been actively marketing it, but plans to ramp up her efforts soon. Some 60 agents already use Virtual Honeymoon, and Hawkey’s goal is to have 1,000 users by the end of the year. She has also begun approaching consortia about partnerships.
The agents using the tool are all certified as romance travel specialists by the Destination Weddings and Honeymoons Specialists Association.
Lynn Wilson, owner of Shared Travel in Chico, Calif., said she finds the tool useful when couples are unsure of where to honeymoon. She recently purchased two VR headsets to use at an upcoming bridal show. “It’s fun. It’s different. It’s an experience,” she said, adding that the price of the headsets is not prohibitively high, nor are they low quality.
Camille Sanders, owner of Chic Romance Travel in Fresno, Calif., uses Virtual Honeymoon and its quiz as a marketing tool. She includes links to the quiz in her newsletters, on social media and in her signature line of emails. She has also sent it to past clients. “Taking a quick little quiz, it’s fun,” she said. “It doesn’t take very long to do.”
Virtual Honeymoon was created to use on your couples that have NO idea where to go on their Romantic Getaway! The perfect client to use this VR interactive matching tool, is one that is “all over the map” or says something like, “we don’t’ know where we want to go, just some place warm and tropical.” This interactive tool SAVES TIME, gets Couples EXCITED & ready to BOOK!
By implementing VR (Virtual Reality) and 360* Videos, agents can now not only match the couple to their top destination but let them virtually experience it!
“How cool would it be to take Virtual Honeymoon tool to a Wedding fair, try on the couples that don’t know where they want to go on their Romantic Getaway, they can take our fun interactive test, get their destination match and then the agent put a VR headset on them to jet away to virtually experience say Jamaica! Agents better have their deposit forms ready!
How it works:
By answering a series of carefully thought out, fun, interactive questions about their likes, preferences, budget etc….the intuitive VR tool will match the clients to their top two Destinations based on their answers selected. The tool will then show their top two matched destinations side-by-side with descriptions of each, from there they can select one (or both) to experience, a beautiful page opens up with destination information, photo, video, links to explore! The system can track each clients Q/A data and when activated, emailed direct to agent, for follow-up!
Robin Hawkey is the owner/visionary of Virtual Honeymoon and loves to share her passion for Romantic Travel. She has won numerous Travel Awards, with the most recent as 2016 Trendsetter Award for “Best Targeted Marketing” and featured in Travelage West. see article here: Travelage West
