Corporate Travel and Aviation: Providing Connections and Genuine Service

For corporate travelers, a hotel experience can make or break a work trip, and it often falls on a travel advisor to choose the hotel that best suits the traveler.  

Helene Nena Quick, owner of Hawaii-based Quick Aloha Travel Services, books hotels worldwide for owners and operators of private and corporate aircraft in the business aviation industry. 

As a corporate aviation specialist born and raised in the Aloha State, Quick uses her aviation background to meet the lodging needs of flight crews and plane owners while flying around the world. 

The power of connections 
Quick entered the travel industry in 1989 when she began working for a fixed base operator in Hawaii with her husband. The couple fell in love with aviation and set a goal of obtaining their private pilot licenses. At that time, Quick’s husband suggested that she book their hotels as private pilots. Combined with experience as a vacation planner for Princess Cruises, this journey brought her to founding Quick Aloha Travel in August 2022.   

Working with organizations such as NEST Plus and The Affluent Traveler Collection, as well as joining the National Business Aircraft Association (NBAA), showed Quick the importance of connections in helping people experience quality corporate travel. Among these partners is Marriott International.

“It’s the added value of having those very specific preferred partners,” Quick says, referring to Marriott. “As a hotelier and the networking events and the recognition that we get as travel advisors, we’re passing those very connections that we’re making at these events through marketing programs. We’re passing that added value on to corporate America.”

Quick Aloha Travel aims to stand out in the aviation industry by setting offerings apart, such as making sure clients know the difference between Marriott’s Bonvoy program and the Stars and Luminus program through the Affluent Traveler Collection. 

24/7 services for the best corporate travel experience 
Quick Aloha Travel’s goal is to make booking hotel reservations stress-free, with benefits including hotel loyalty points, 24/7 support, and worldwide access to multiple hotel properties. Trips are tailored to flight crews, who can also enjoy an easy time adjusting to unexpected trip changes, such as cancellations and special requests. 

Understanding markets allows Quick Aloha Travel to assist clients in meeting their travel needs ahead of schedule. For example, with Europe being a popular destination for corporate travel in the summer, planning would begin around February or March to find the right hotel and prepare for necessary changes.

Quick Aloha Travel also creates travel plans by understanding its client base. This includes looking at the type of business trips that clients have been involved in for the past 10 to 20 years.

Another focus for Quick Aloha Travel is keeping up with trends in the corporate travel world, such as offering access to sister properties of the hotels that clients would initially choose. 

“Case in point, Marriott has hundreds, thousands … I think there are over 7,000 properties now worldwide, and you can actually be staying at one Marriott property and enjoy the amenities of another,” says Quick. “Not all properties are participating in it, but when they do, it’s a beautiful thing.”

For Quick, part of offering clients the best travel experience means being involved in the industry as a professional.

“A lot of my colleagues say, ‘Helene, you not only sell travel. You live it,’” says Quick. “And that is exactly who Quick Aloha Travel is. I’m passionate about what I do, and I’ve taken those textbook travel experiences, and I bring it to life. 

“I actually live it because that’s how passionate I am,“ Quick adds. “It’s a reflection of our name, Quick Aloha Travel Services. Right now, it’s only private and corporate aviation, but I know it’s really going to open doors to so many other opportunities. I can’t wait.”

Quick expects a projected growth of 1,600 cruise clients and corporate aviation accounts, as well as a forecasted growth of $1.6 million in sales in both cruise and corporate aviation segments this year alone.

Helping travelers with integrity 
For aspiring travel advisors to succeed, Quick recommends focusing on integrity so that clients understand who they are working with. 

“When I’m working with private and corporate clients, if I’m not true to that in presenting a product, in presenting pricing, in anything I do in our conversations, in our dinner meetings, it all comes down to that,” she says. 

“When a flight department decides to work with me, they’re like ‘Well, we could just book it on our own. Why should we book it with you?’ and I say, ‘Because of my integrity.’ Integrity stands for so many things in business, so unless I have that, then everything else kind of falls short,” Quick adds. 

Quick plans on moving back to Hawaii from Las Vegas, N.V. after 20 years. With a busy corporate travel season in Europe ahead, Quick Aloha Travel is sure to have a variety of corporate clients in need of their services for proper hotel experiences.