Cruise Planners agents get new tech tools

MIAMI — Cruise Planners introduced a raft of new tools for
franchisees at its annual conference, including one that frees agents from
having to open and modify a client booking every time they receive a new
supplier confirmation e-mail.

The sold-out conference drew about 600 agents to the InterContinental
Miami for several days of presentations. On Nov. 8, most of the attendees will
set sail on a two-day preview cruise on Royal Caribbean International’s Harmony
of the Seas.

The attendees heard from Cruise Planners CEO Michelle Fee,
COO Vicky Garcia and others on the senior management team. There were fireworks
in the evening to mark a charity walk and the next morning Viking Cruises gave
away 20 river cruises to the winners of a contest.

Among the tools Cruise Planners is rolling out is CP
Insights, which breaks prospects down by income, age and psychographic factors
into 67 “cohorts” that can then be matched to promotions for specific
cruises or cruise lines.

For example, a B-7 cohort, labeled “Midlife Strugglers,
Families” refers to head of household in their working prime earning
$50,000 a year or less, who might be best suited to a contemporary cruise,
while an N-65, a “Careers First Urbanite,” is making over $200,000 a
year and would be a candidate for a luxury vacation.

The tool will help deliver “the right message to the
right person at the right time,” Fee said.

In another innovation, Cruise Planners will extend its triggered
e-mail program, which automatically sends seven timed e-mail messages relevant
to clients at various stages before and after their cruise, to tour bookings.
More than 50 tour operators are covered.

Cruise Planners will also provide its agents with an e-mail
address to which they can forward vendor reservation confirmations so that they
can automatically be entered into a client’s record in the electronic
reservations system, saving agents from having to manually enter the data.

“We spend so much time with that,” said Kristi
Sharp, a franchisee in Cape Coral, Fla. “It’s amazing,” she said of
the automated program.

Fee presented data showing that agents who have been with
Cruise Planners for three years or more book an average of $747,000 of travel
per year. About 66% of their sales are cruises and 24% land vacations, with
insurance and ancillary products accounting for the rest.

Cruise Planners said revenue is expected to grow 24% this year
over last year compared with 11.7% for the travel industry overall, although
some of that growth comes from new franchises that weren’t in business in 2015.