Forget The Silverware, Bring On Trip To Hawaii
Why register for china when you can register for China?
The travel industry is forever trying new tactics to target honeymooners. Now comes a “honeymoon registry” offered by Backroads, a Berkeley, Calif.-based operator of outdoorsy tours to destinations around the world.
The idea is so simple that it can’t be new. But several travel agents, who each week see all sorts of marketing gambits aimed at honeymooners, told me they couldn’t recall another program like it.
“What a wonderful idea!” said Mary Taylor of Arapahoe Travel near Denver. Even without the incentive of a registry, she added, “honeymooners are going toward that kind of trip, especially the granola people. You know, their names are, like, Starr.”
Backroads, founded in 1979, reports that it sent about 13,000 travelers to 26 countries last year, many to such popular honeymoon destinations as Tuscany, Vermont and California’s Napa and Sonoma counties. The company’s justunveiled registry works this way: An engaged couple gets a Backroads catalog. They agree that: A) they want to spend their getaway walking or hiking or cycling; B) they don’t want to grapple with the details of planning it all; and C) they don’t mind traveling by day in the company of 12 to 24 like-minded others.
They choose a Backroads vacation, open a free registry account, put down a deposit of $200-$400 per person, and agree to make up the difference if gifts don’t cover the trip’s cost. If they want the eight-night cycling and camping trip to southern Utah and the Grand Canyon ($2,054 per couple, including meals, accommodations, bike rentals, taxes, excluding transportation to St. George, Utah), they put down $200 per person. If they want five nights in chateaux and inns in the Burgundy region of France ($4,068 per couple, excluding transportation to Dijon), the deposit is $400 per person, as it is for 14 nights in China ($6,586 per couple, excluding transportation to Hong Kong).
Once the trip is selected, the couple informs family and friends that they’re registered with Backroads, and Backroads accepts contributions to their account of $25 or more via cash, check or credit card. All the money must be received at least two weeks before the beginning of the trip. If the gifts add up to more than the trip’s cost, Backroads refunds the extra money to the couple in cash.
Darren Armor, the group sales coordinator who developed the idea, notes that many of Backroads’ customers are outdoorsy types in their 40s, and that this kind of untraditional honeymoon and untraditional gift makes especially good sense for couples entering second marriages. He adds that although honeymooners share meals with the group, couples are free during the day’s hiking or biking to race or dawdle until the rest of the group is out of sight.
Meanwhile, the rest of the industry continues its varied efforts to woo the newly wedded, from the couples-only resorts of the Caribbean (such as Sandals and Couples) to the hotels of Hawaii. The items that follow are only a small sampling:
At the high-end hotels along the Big Island of Hawaii’s Kohala Coast (which market themselves jointly as the Kohala Coast Resort Association), honeymooners’ specials range from a $250 wedding ceremony to a $23,275 “Flaming Passion” five-day escape.
At the more costly end of the spectrum, Customized for You Inc., charter yacht brokers based in Charlotte, N.C., will arrange a wedding, reception and week’s sail on a 105-foot catamaran for you, your beloved and 18 guests, at a cost of $30,000 plus $5,000 for meals.
Lately, travel agents themselves have been known to join in the honeymooner-wooing. The Cruise Line, a Miami-based agency that specializes in booking cruises, publishes a pamphlet outlining seven cruise companies’ shipboard wedding packages.
The registry idea has turned up in other offices as well. About 1 years ago, Long Beach, Calif., travel agent Ada Brown says a customer asked that her office, Seaside Travel, act as a collection place for gifts of honeymoon travel funds. Brown agreed, and has since offered the service a few times and printed fliers offering a honeymoon registry, she says. In February, she even bought space at a Long Beach bridal show, where she plied her trade alongside stationers, florists and dressmakers.