Kicking off its “CP World” conference in Miami with “The Wizard of Oz” theming, Cruise Planners executives equated COVID-19 to the “Wicked Witch" for the mayhem created the past few years. But Michelle Fee, CEO and founder, Cruise Planners, also told the opening-day audience of 700 travel advisors that they were akin to Dorothy, the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion.
She credited the franchise agency owners and advisors for using their brains, having caring hearts, relying on teamwork and courageously conquering incredible challenges.Other Cruise Planners executives, including Theresa Scalzitti, chief sales officer; Brian Shultz, chief information officer; and Scott Koepf, senior vice president, strategic development, also joined Fee in doing some positive "bewitching" of their own.
Collectively, they revealed sales results that show just how successful the Cruise Planners advisor network has been this year:
- Luxury travel sales in 2022 are 28 percent higher than during 2019, which had been a record-breaking, all-time-high year.
- World cruise bookings for 2022 are up a whopping 89 percent over 2019 levels. Cruise Planners currently has $10 million in World cruises under deposit.
- Land travel bookings in 2022 are up 18 percent over 2019; that includes bookings for all-inclusive resorts and guided and packaged tours. "Just because our name is Cruise Planners, [remember that] we sell more Sandals than anyone else in the world,” Koepf points out.
- For river cruises, 2022 has been Cruise Planners best year ever with a 21 percent increase in departures this year.
Overall for 2022, Cruise Planners expects to achieve 98 percent of the business it had in 2019, and that percentage reflects the cruise industry’s reduced capacity, plus closed countries/destinations and vaccine requirements for much of 2022.
Fee says that the largest "commission check run" in Cruise Planners’ history was July 1, 2022, a record then broken two more times on August 1, 2022, and September 1, 2022.
Looking ahead to 2023 departures, based on deposited bookings as of October 2022, those are up 26 percent from the same period in October 2019.
“It’s been a stellar year of growth for Cruise Planners and the energy at convention is electric and palpable,” says Fee. “You never leave without feeling rejuvenated and empowered and we’re thrilled to share all the innovations we’ve been working on and to celebrate the milestones and hard work of our advisors and Home Office Team.
One cheery familiar face, however, was missing from the event. On opening day, the Cruise Planners team dedicated the conference to Vicky Garcia, Cruise Planners’ chief operating officer, who passed away after a long illness in August 2022. On closing day, travel advisors also will see a tribute video. Plus, the franchise agency group will rename its "Home Office Cruisitude Award" as the “Vicky Garcia Cruisitude Award.”
New LivePlanner Tool
Cruise Planners also unveiled new technology tools and applications. Most notable is the new LivePlanner tool. Now advisors have a real-time, live consultation session for vacation planning and presentation with their clients.
But unlike Zoom or other screen sharing tools, LivePlanner gives full control to the advisor to push the content to their clients' screens to show them only what they want to show them. Fee called it the first of its kind in the travel industry and said Cruise Planners has filed for a U.S. patent. This tool is available now for advisor use.
In tandem with the new LivePlanner, advisors can expect to soon see LivePlanner Collections, including specific destinations and brands, or specific ships, resorts or tours. Each collection will be designed together with the supplier partners to make it easy to show clients exactly what they’re seeking.
In addition, by combining LivePlanner and Cruise Planners’ newly enhanced Trip Summary 2.0 (now integrated within CP Maxx, Cruise Planners’ proprietary CRM system), advisors will be able to build a day-by-day sample itinerary. But it won't simply show the itinerary: It will offers itinerary details, photos, special notes and recommendations.
In turn, the advisor can then use LivePlanner to review that detailed itinerary with clients.
Coming soon, too, is Destination Hub, a new addition to CP Maxx. It will also give advisors destination information at the click of a button. It’s powered by Fodor's. One new feature? Advisors will be able via this portal to also share first-hand recommendations with other advisors, such as “What’s the Best Restaurant in Rome, or “What’s a fun family activity in St. Lucia?”
"Advisors were already sharing that information" among themselves, says Fee, but “now there’s going to be a portal for that.”
Other New Tech Tools
Shultz, Scalzitti, Koepf and Fee also provided a rundown on a range of new technology tools being introduced by Cruise Planners. These include:
- New Branded Landing Pages are now offering destination pages, supplier pages and more.
- Coming soon are Destination Microsites that will enhance advisors’ websites with gorgeous images and detailed information about popular destinations.
- Also coming soon is Amenity Tracker, another new tool within CP Maxx. It will help advisors keep track of all perks, amenities and gifts that clients receive for booking, such as onboard credits, beverage packages, prepaid gratuities, resort credits and more.
- A new chat feature for advisors to use while seeking service and support from the CARE Support Team is now available.
- Also available for advisors to use now is the new Navitrip Hotel Booking Engine, providing access to more than 100,000 hotels and resorts across the globe. The “find a hotel tool” allows advisors to adjust their commission up or down—within certain constraints—by using a toggle bar.
On the training side, Cruise Planners announced that it will conduct 16 in-person events during 2023. That will include two Elite Summits, three Tech Days, five Boot Camps, three Sales Academies, a Land Forum, Luxury Forum and the Annual Convention.
A Look to the Future
Echoing the "Wizard of Oz" theming of “there’s no place like home,” this year's annual conference is back at a South Florida hotel, the Intercontinental Miami, and this week will continue aboard the new Norwegian Prima from PortMiami. Some 650 advisors will sail and participate in additional training and programming aboard. Last year's annual conference was in Mexico.
This is also the first conference for Cruise Planners since its recent shift from being a long-time American Express Travel Representative to being part of the Signature Travel Network. “Big change for us," acknowledges Koepf, “but we say that with change there are great opportunities.”
He adds that advisors “are thrilled with this choice,” and the new partnership “is already bringing a lot of great results in a short period of time…This has been somewhat of a game changer for us.”
Koepf added: ”And we know there’s more to come.”