Royal Caribbean International and Celebrity Cruises is offering travel agents added flexibility when making group bookings. "Groups Your Way" allows agents two different options to book groups based on the number of staterooms they wish to hold.
"With the new policy, Groups Your Way will give our travel partners the ability to lock in a rate and hold blocks of staterooms for a longer length of time in order to generate new business opportunities," said Vicki Freed, senior vice president of sales, trade support & services, Royal Caribbean International.
How it works: Agents can hold—with no initial deposit—up to 16 staterooms on Royal Caribbean sailings and up to 24 staterooms on Celebrity sailings, and have up to 180 days to sell the rooms.
"Travel agents have told us that booking promotional and affinity groups would be more successful for our brands with increased time to market and sell," said Dondra Ritzenthaler, senior vice president of sales, Celebrity Cruises. "Our Groups Your Way policy reflects valuable feedback from our travel partners, providing them with flexibility to sell more cruises in different ways, thereby increasing their revenue."
Travel agents will be able to hold space, as long as they have
sufficient staterooms sold, up to 180, 120 or 90 days prior to sailing for affinity group bookings requiring more than 16 staterooms on Royal Caribbean International or more than 24 staterooms on Celebrity Cruises. A $25 deposit per guest will be due 30 days from creation of the group booking.
For agents requiring more than 50 staterooms, a cruise line group partner advocate will help create a mutually agreed upon sales timeline that meets the agent’s needs.
Agents can contact a Royal Caribbean International group partner advocate for more information at 800-327-2055 or [email protected]. Group partner advocates for Celebrity Cruises can be reached at 800-963-0311 or [email protected]. The current groups policy for Azamara Cruises will remain the same.
The new policy takes effect in September; until then, agents are encouraged to continue to book groups as they would normally. Visit www.royalcaribbean.com or www.celebritycruises.com.