When Cruise Planners executives stepped onto the stage at the cruise franchise group’s annual convention at the Borgata casino resort in Atlantic City, NJ, on Thursday, they revealed just how positive a year it’s been for those in their network.
Themed “In It to Win It,” the conference showcased new tools and services to make agents more productive, provided plenty of motivation for enhanced selling, enhanced the attendees’ product knowledge and showcased the trade group’s performance results for 2014 and beyond.
Show Me the Money
Let's just say green – a highlight of Cruise Planners’ logo and brand identity – is more than just a color. It’s money in the bank, at least this year. Tom Kruszewski, CFO and co-owner, Cruise Planners, revealed that the average Cruise Planners' agency reaped 26 percent more in 2014 travel sales compared with the previous year.
The agency franchise group, an American Express Travel representative, now has more than 900 franchise locations. Conference attendees learned that collectively the agencies posted increased revenue in all industry segments.
Key revenue highlights? Cruise revenues, the group’s core business, at 71 percent of all sales, were up 16.3 percent. Travel insurance sales were up 16.2 percent. Land revenues, on average, were up 30 percent.
The year ahead looks even better. Because 2014 bookings are on average 44 percent over what agencies had on the books in 2013, "we expect that next year most of you are going to have a record sales year," said Kruszewski.
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| Cruise Planners executives who participated in the trade group's "In It to Win It" conference last week included, left to right, Tom Kruszewski, CFO and co-owner; Vicky Garcia COO and co-owner; Michelle Fee, CEO and co-founder; Brian Shultz, executive vice president, technology and operations. // Photo by Cruise Planners |
Travel Agent tuned into the conference’s session via a “live” video feed. While the opening session offered touches of fun, including Cruise Planners' signature “wearing of the green," it was also a conference with hard-hitting motivational and sales/marketing messaging.
For example, some conference activities were based on “Monopoly,” the board game concept with a goal of the winner having total business domination; it was created around Atlantic City landmarks, such as Boardwalk and Park Place.
So, as the conference began in Atlantic City, Michelle Fee, CEO and co-founder, didn’t mince words. “Our goal is to have total domination of the home-based travel industry where Cruise Planners is the only name your customers are ever going to need when they make a booking."
Enhanced HQ Support
She said the headquarters’ group wants to become an extension of each franchise to help them grow their businesses, and has recently added staffers in many areas, including technology, training, strategic development and sales and marketing. A new regional structure is now providing more targeted marketing and sales support.
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| Cruise Planners Headquarters in Coral Springs, FL // Photo by Susan J. Young |
Over the past year, Fee said that the corporate headquarters group in Coral Springs, FL, is now at about 65 employees. Fee noted that Cruise Planners has been building its technology and beefing up in-house support of franchisees to each of them can focus on selling, letting the headquarters group “do the heavy lifting.”
New boot camps developed this year will continue into 2015. Business coaches set up by the headquarters group are also consulting with franchisees.
During the opening session, Fee and Kruszewski, along with Vicky Garcia, COO and co-owner, and Brian Shultz, executive vice president, technology and operations, outlined the many new Cruise Planners programs being unveiled later this year or early next. That brought bursts of clapping approval from the agent audience.
New Associate Program
Of significant interest to many of the attendees was Cruise Planners’ new initiative to put more muscle into its Associate Program; that's designed to help support independent contractors affiliated with franchise agencies.
Kicking off January 1, a new Cruise Planners’ Associate Program will allow these independent contractors to participate in marketing campaigns and give them additional tools to help their agency increase revenue. Associates will also participate in a full sales program moving forward. They won’t have their own website, but will continue to be part of the franchise agency’s structure.
What’s the big deal? The reality is that franchise agencies who added such associates as outside sellers experienced a revenue jump of 27 percent. Cruise Planners also said that franchise agencies with associates typically post triple the revenue of franchisees who run the business by themselves.
Socially Speaking
Social media expert Sophie Bujold has been hired by Cruise Planners to develop a quarterly training program. Starting in January, she'll help agency owners and agents build their social media presence on Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and other social sites.
In addition, those agents who desire even more instruction can take a separate 30-day challenge with Bujold; that’s available at an added fee and totally optional.
Technology Enhancements
Cruise Planners stressed to the conference attendees that today's Millennials desire to buy everything online and about 75 percent of all travelers use smartphones. Thus, Cruise Planners has introduced a re-tooled Mobile 2.0 Cruise Planners app.
This is just one of 87 technology enhancements designed by the corporate group to assist franchise owners. The revamped Mobile 2.0 allows Cruise Planners agencies to send clients notifications and promotional offers, and clients also can use it to book a cruise or talk with their agent.
In addition, with a new feature for Mobile 2.0, clients may create and upload photo albums of their personal trips – and then share them with their agent or on social media platforms.
Getting more traffic to the individual Cruise Planners franchise agency sites has been another goal of the headquarters team. Recent search engine optimization (SEO) tweaks have created a 113 percent increase in website traffic. Executives said more focus is being placed in this area moving forward to drive additional traffic.
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| Cruise Planners' headquarters will do more to assist agencies with SEO and managing website content. Clients will be able to search for both cruises and land vacations from any site page. |
Doing the heavy lifting for franchise owners, Cruise Planners headquarters staffers routinely manage and provide content for franchisee websites. So what's new? Agency websites will now have improved displays for promotional offers and deals. Clients also will be able to search for both cruises and land vacations from any page on the agency's website.
In addition, web surfers will find an upgraded search box and new buttons for land events, tickets and vacations. Agents cheered when the latter was revealed on stage.
Starting December 1, franchisees can expect a new CP Brochure Rack that will show clients digital versions of brochures. Approximately 100 brochures will be loaded and available for downloading from every agency’s site; each agency can customize the rack, adding up to 18 of their preferred brochures.
Smart Database Management
The agency group also revealed that its new Smart Select tool – launched this past summer – is effectively allowing agents to identify clients within a database for targeted marketing. That’s resulted in a double-digit increase in sales.
How does it work? Agents who aren’t techies or into database management needn't do anything. The Cruise Planners headquarters staff will automatically segment the databases, by sifting through such “intel” as demographics, past purchases and so on. It's a time saver for agents, but agents can also opt out, if they so desire.
Also new is CP Hub, a client management tool integrated into Cruise Planners' existing reservations system. Agencies will be able to prospect more intelligently and send e-mail reminders – to better qualify their customers, book vacations and follow up, as well as manage the reservation with e-mail reminders.
Agents will also be set to get paid more quickly for hotel reservations. Effective December 1, Cruise Planners is adding a new Orbitz hotel reservations system to its e-Connect booking platform, which had a sizable boost in agent bookings during the third quarter. Instead of commission going through American Express, the commissions will be paid directly to Cruise Planners via Orbitz and will be expedited to the franchise owners.
Also new, starting December 1, a new triggered e-mail program will automatically contact customers throughout the sales process and for the entire life cycle of the booking. Up to eight intelligent emails will be sent to customers, giving them personalized attention based on their specific booking, and freeing up the travel advisor to spend more time on sales.
So the customer might get a reminder email about final payment, a helpful email with destination or pre- or post-cruise options, an email about how to check in for the cruise, and a welcome home note.
Concluding the initial session, “we are all in it together,” Fee stressed, again noting her goal of total domination within the home-based travel industry. “We are in it to win it.”
After the Atlantic City portion of the conference concluded, attendees then boarded Royal Caribbean International's new Quantum of the Seas to experience the industry's newest high-tech cruise ship; it sails this winter from Bayonne, NJ.
For more information, visit www.cruiseplannersfranchise.com