As part of Cruise Planners’ 2021 Convention — taking place Oct. 2-6 at the El Dorado Royale resort in Riviera Maya, Mexico — the agency made a slew of announcements regarding financial performance, new tools and technology, upcoming events, marketing programs and more for its travel advisor members.
During a pre-convention media preview, Cruise Planners executives shared a financial overview that showed strong promise for 2022. While the agency is seeing some decline in bookings this year due to the Delta variant (after June, which was its best month in 2021), it is pacing 25% ahead of 2019 for 2022 so far. Luxury travel is up 62% going into next year, with river cruising growing by 71% and land travel rising 61%.
Cruise Planners’ land travel growth is due in part to its recently introduced all-inclusive resort tool, which was added in August 2020 to help members pivot to resort sales when cruises were unavailable. To keep that momentum going, the agency plans to introduce a Hotel Booking Engine in early 2022, presenting the best-in-market price for hundreds of thousands of global hotels, all in a streamlined interface for advisors.
Other new tools for members will include a highly detailed business analytics dashboard containing 120 different metrics for agents to track their business progress and goals; an enhanced sales opportunity tool for tracking leads and setting reminders; and automated communications with clients, including new push notifications on the Cruise Planners mobile app (featuring promotions, sales and suggestions) and text messages sent on advisors’ behalf.
In terms of new marketing initiatives, Cruise Planners is introducing customizable white-label websites for travel advisors to cross-market with local businesses and organizations. An automated email program will also examine clients’ past behavior and send out emails with custom vacation suggestions — again, on the advisor’s behalf.
Education and a total of 12 in-person events for Cruise Planners members in 2022 range from six Star University trainings (for new franchisees) to five “boot camp” trainings, the agency’s Land & Luxury Forum, three CP Tech Days, two Elite Summits (trips for top producers) and the Annual Convention.
The agency also plans to continue its Where2Next virtual event series next year, which was introduced during the pandemic to create a desire among clients to travel again. So far this year, Cruise Planners has hosted 12 of these digital events, with 18,000 clients registered and nearly $20 million in sales generated.
Moving into 2022, Michelle Fee, CEO and founder of Cruise Planners, says the goal is not to just survive, but to thrive.
“Now is our time to soar,” she said.
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