A choppy ‘Wave Season’ | Travel Research Online

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A choppy ‘Wave Season’

WAVE season was looking extremely lucrative for me this year. I was making 3-5 bookings a day and then….Costa Concordia. It has had a huge impact on my personal income. I only sell cruises so I can’t fall back on selling resorts or other travel to make up the loss of cruise business. I’m thankful for my repeat clientele and those who recognize the fantastic promotions being offered by the cruise lines, and my agency for keeping me in the black this month.

Ironically, now is probably the safest time to sail with the new safety standards updated, etc. I was so dismayed to hear that several hundred passengers on the Concordia had not been through a muster drill. On my last cruise, we had muster within an hour of leaving port. I’m glad the new standards are now in effect for all the cruise lines and I expect sales will slowly come back up and people who love to cruise will keep cruising. They understand this was a rare occurrence and only happened because of several bad judgment calls, one right after the other, from the Captain. The loss of life was so sad and avoidable. I hope this tragic event only improves the cruise industry in preventing disasters like this from happening.

Shifting gears now, I’d like to have any input from those of you who are hosted by an agency. What do you like? What are the benefits? What don’t you like? And why? I’m curious to find out how satisfied hosted agents are with the set up. I’m traveling to Las Vegas in May for the Home Based Travel Agent Forum and plan to attend some seminars about hosting agencies. If you are also going, please contact me through email or LinkedIn and we can connect while we’re there.

Keeping my New Year’s goals in mind, I looked into local industry organizations. There is not a lot of information to be had. In fact, I’d have to be the president of one of them if I wanted to join since there are no other members! The travel agent community in this area (Boise) seems to be somewhat non-social. I’m curious to find out why that is.  It’s a little mystery I can hopefully solve before my next diary entry. Are any of you in an area not seemingly supported by industry organizations or associations? What do you do?

Julie Summers is a cruise only travel professional. Julie works from her home in Idaho and has two boys 12 and 13, a software analyst husband and a very spoiled Boston terrier.

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