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It’s a traveler’s dream vacation, and a travel advisor’s dream commission—even a sign of hope that one day soon the world will be open and the seas free to roam.

So, of course, Royal Caribbean’s announcement of its first-ever world cruise, the longest in the industry at 274 nights, made some headlines this past week. And for some travel advisors, it actually did get clients calling.

While some said it was too long (especially for customers with pets) and some said it was too expensive for the traditional RCCL cruiser, Royal Caribbean SVP Vicki Freed said that in just the first couple of days “hundreds of bookings have been created” as “people are moving their ‘bucket list’ trips into their ‘to do list’” and travel advisors tell me that indeed some categories are almost sold out.

The “Ultimate World Cruise,” sailing round-trip Miami on the mid-sized Serenade of the Seas beginning December 10, 2023, is broken down into four legs Read the rest of this entry »

It’s November, and if you live anywhere outside of Florida, you can feel Winter nipping at your nose. So, it’s time to focus sales on Alaska. I’m sure that sounds counterintuitive. The calls will start coming in soon enough asking for cruises to “somewhere warm.” In the meantime, several travel advisors are seeing an uptick in Alaska requests. For now the focus is on 2019, but the 2020 itineraries are starting to open for booking. Royal Caribbean just opened 2020 sailings and the rest of the cruise lines will be following suit over the new few weeks. Read the rest of this entry »

In 2005 the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) launched an innovative marketing campaign, World’s Largest Cruise Night. The basic concept was to have travel agencies host cruise nights throughout the United States on the same night in October. Several hundred agencies participated in the event. After a couple of years they added “virtual” cruise nights to the event, expanding the number of agencies and consumers participating in this one night activity. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently I had a conversation with a potential independent contractor, and the discussion naturally turned to compensation. His business model was strongly focused on selling only those cruise lines that paid the highest commissions. It made me wonder how much travel advisors focus on their commission when recommending cruise lines to clients.

This is the time of year when travel agencies start to re-evaluate their preferred suppliers, making decisions on what to change in the upcoming calendar year. Part of that analysis involves our relationships with BDMs, our clients’ past experiences, and how we are compensated. Read the rest of this entry »

I am not referring to the fuzzy little critters, or the mouse that runs an amusement conglomerate. MICE is an acronym for meetings, incentives, conventions, and exhibitions; and, it can be a very lucrative piece of your business. If you do not already pursue meeting or incentive travel, you should seriously consider it. Cruise ships are a great venue for meetings as well as for incentive travel. Read the rest of this entry »

A recent Royal Caribbean webcast reminded me of the continual struggle that travel advisors have with suppliers contacting clients directly. Many travel advisors believe that they “own” the client and that suppliers should refrain from marketing to or contacting advisors’ clients, ever. In reality, the clients belong to no one, and suppliers have just as much of a right to contact our shared clients. Let’s face a harsh reality here, suppliers have a vested interest in getting as much repeat business as possible. With the data showing that clients don’t always return to the same travel advisors for future vacations, our suppliers can’t take the chance we’re going to drive the repeat business to them. Read the rest of this entry »

Did you see the story back in January about the peacock emotional support animal? A woman tried claiming her peacock was an emotional support animal, and she was denied boarding by United Airlines. If you didn’t see the story you can read about it here. It is not a surprise that the peacock incident led to United Airlines changing their policy about emotional support animals. Read the rest of this entry »

Last year when Royal Caribbean launched the new non-refundable deposit cruise fare, it included two incentives. The first was a lower cruise fare. The second incentive was an onboard credit of $25 to $100 per room, if the booking was created 6 months or more before sailing. Read the rest of this entry »

Not long after the Celebrity Solstice was launched, Celebrity Cruises launched a program to “solsticize” the rest of the fleet. This effort blended the best of the Solstice Class ships with the best aspects of the Millennium Class ships. Staterooms were updated, public areas were enhanced, and additional dining options were added. Over a few years the fleet was brought up to the new standards introduced with the Solstice Class ships. Read the rest of this entry »

Our suppliers are always looking for ways to encourage travel agents to book their product more. Of course, the biggest incentive or reward is an increase in commission, and suppliers definitely do reward productivity with higher commission levels. However, several suppliers have additional incentive programs in place as well. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last several months the three brands owned by Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd (Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises, and Azamara Club Cruises) have rolled out a new program that allows passengers to “spend” their onboard credit before ever stepping foot onboard a ship. As a cruise consumer, I thought this was fantastic. I am one of those cruisers that likes to pre-plan everything. When I walk onboard the ship, I don’t want to have to worry about buying anything, reserving anything, etc. Read the rest of this entry »

Officially, it’s here. Hurricane Season starts on June 1, and goes through November 30 every year. Of course, hurricanes happen year round; they’re simply more prone to occur during the 6 month period of June 1 – November 30. Hurricane Alex popped up in January 2016. I remember the shock expressed by clients and friends, that a hurricane could “happen so early.” I was repeatedly explaining that hurricanes happen anywhere and anytime.

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Have you every had that client request that was challenging to meet, or even impossible? They want a cruise, but they don’t want kids onboard or even younger adults, and they’re traveling solo. Adult only cruises haven’t been available outside of the charter market. We know Virgin Voyages will start sailing in 2020 with an adult only product. But they are not targeting a specific age range, other than adult.  Then, along comes Saga Cruises.

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We have several new ships in the pipeline for the coming years. And cruise ports need to keep up with the new ship builds. As the ships are being designed to be bigger, cruise ports take the risk of losing business if they cannot accommodate these bigger ships. When Royal Caribbean designed the largest ship at sea, Oasis of the Seas, they built a whole new port of call in Falmouth, Jamaica to accommodate the size of Oasis.

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Travel agents need to beware of supplier policies which can impact our commissions. I learned a painful lesson the hard way, so I’m sharing it here in hopes that other travel agents can avoid my pain. Here it is: not all supplier gift cards or credit cards are travel agent friendly.

Here’s My Experience

My local grocery store gives double fuel points for gift card purchases, and sometimes they will offer quadruple fuel points. It was during one of these 4x points times that I purchased some cruise line gift cards to apply to my own cruise. What I did not know in advance was that these gift cards are applied as a cruise fare credit, not as a payment. What happens when the cruise fare is reduced with a credit

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It seems that every time we turn around, one of the cruise lines increases their gratuity amounts. It was roughly 3 years ago that gratuities were approximately $12 per passenger, per day. With Norwegian Cruise Line’s most recent announcement, taking effect this Sunday April 1, 2018, their standard gratuities are increasing to $14.50 per passenger, per day. Their last increase was exactly one year ago, and before that there were two increases in 2015 (May 1 and August 1, increasing to $12.95 then to $13.50 respectively).

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I’ve heard grumblings from a variety of travel agent sources over the last few months.  The complaints vary: cruise lines poaching agency clients, marketing that encourages direct sales, cruise fares we can’t book, and lack of marketing support from our cruise line partners.  I’ve touched on some of these topics in the past, but it warrants a revisit in light of the current concerns from travel agents.
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Everyone is anticipating the launch of the new Celebrity Edge this fall, and Celebrity Cruises is keeping the excitement stoked by releasing new information over time, and not all at once.  The most recent announcement this week was about the new culinary features that will be found on-board the Celebrity Edge.

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If you sell cruises, you should take advantage of opportunities that various cruise lines offer to do ship inspections. These opportunities provide the ability to check see staterooms and public areas, etc. without having to sail on the ships.

Do not dismiss ships inspections as a convenient opportunity only for travel agents that live close to cruise ports. If you are land locked as I am, you can still take advantage of ship inspection opportunities. It just takes some planning. Even if you live near a cruise port, advanced planning is required. Because of security concerns, you cannot simply wake up one morning and drive to the port, and be admitted to tour a ship that’s in port.

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Some time ago I heard this in a cruise line training class about cruise-tours, and it has stuck with me ever since: “If you are not selling cruise-tours, you are leaving money on the table.” They weren’t exaggerating. As an example, let’s consider an agency that gets 10% commission with Princess Cruises. Take a 7 night Alaskan cruise with cruise line vacation protection, and add a 4 night pre-cruise tour.

The cruise-only commission works out to about $498. The cruise-tour commission works out to about $769. That is a difference of $271 you would be leaving on the table if you focus on booking cruises only. Obviously, the higher commission percentage that an agency gets, the more significant the difference is between cruise-only bookings and cruise-tour bookings.

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The newest dog bone that the media has latched onto are the recent unsatisfactory sanitary inspections of three Carnival cruise ships. If you sell cruises, you will likely have a client bring up this topic sooner or later. With my clients, ironically it’s the non Carnival clients that are sharing concerns about the inspection results. My Carnival clients seem to be oblivious, even though I know they are on top of the news. Maybe they just don’t care; maybe because their upcoming bookings aren’t on any of the ships being reported in the media.

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