Passport Online Reports Gains in Cruise Bookings

cruise shipPassport Online Inc. reports more than 200 percent growth in year-over-year January and  February bookings for its Tandem cruise booking engine. The company also reports a nearly 100 percent growth in individual agency users as the product begins to achieve critical mass and agents gain a comfort level with the booking technology and its ease of use. 

Since the launch of Tandem, Passport Online has become the preferred booking technology for American Express Representative Network, Ensemble Travel Group, and dozens of individual agencies as well, Passport Online says. 

Passport Online says Tandem is the first online cruise booking engine designed to focus on both marketing and booking capabilities for travel agents, integrating email marketing, consumer website shopping, and real travel agent consulting and expertise into the solution. It is designed to help agents work “in tandem” with their clients to maximize the chance of closing the sale, whether booked by the consumer or the agent, Passport says.   

Since launch the search functionality has been enhanced for the agent, adding the ability to book Allianz trip insurance directly within the booking path and adding Tandem to TRAMS Live Connect allowing an agent to move customer profile data into the cruise booking process from Client Base and back, Passport says.

“We began rolling out this product  slowly a few years back, and as with any technology change, we anticipated a lag time in adoption for the travel agency community. We are truly thrilled to see this dramatic uptick in agent bookings since January 1,” said Greg Kott, President and CEO of Passport Online, Inc. 

“The complexity of a cruise booking and the need for a friendly interface, a simple multi-step process and a content rich multi-cruise line booking platform drove us to create Tandem. We have worked closely with our user groups to enhance the product, the functionality and we will continue to respond to the needs of our users," Kott said. 

 Tandem also has a B2C capability providing a consumer facing shopping and booking engine for agent websites, Kott notes.

Visit www.passportonlineinc.com