Cruise Planners Doubles Down on Luxury and River Cruise Sales
CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. (PRWEB) July 31, 2018 -- Cruise Planners, an American Express Travel Representative, recently hosted its second annual Luxury and River Cruise Forum in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. This 3-day event was designed to educate and inspire Cruise Planners agents to focus their efforts on increasing their luxury and river cruise sales.
“I love that look our agents get when a new idea clicks and they’re already thinking how they can apply it to their business,” Fee said. “We design these luxury training events to make sure our agents are not just learning, they’re taking action and surpassing their goals.”
Cruise Planners, the nation’s largest home-based franchise company, has seen incredible growth in their luxury and river cruise segment with luxury sales up 46% and river cruise sales up 61% over 2017. The event, hosted by Cruise Planners owners and executive team including CEO and founder, Michelle Fee, the event attracted more than 200 of Cruise Planners’ top travel agents.
Cruise Planners has implemented a variety of tools to help keep agents visible to luxury clients and to better market to their database such as:
- CP Insights – Using segmentation codes to analyze client behaviors, Cruise Planners agents are able to target the right clients more effectively and efficiently. This “insight” into their customers also gives their agents the confidence to present a luxury vacation product to them.
- The Sophisticated Traveler E-Newsletter – In addition to Cruise Planners’ weekly travel deals email, The Sophisticated Traveler luxury e-newsletter was created to target upscale, experienced travelers and includes exclusive deals and offers from Cruise Planners.
- Custom Luxury Events and Invitations – Hosting events helps Cruise Planners agents expand their client base and build connections with current clients. To help market these high-end events, Cruise Planners offers premium, customizable materials including invitations, brochures and other marketing materials.
- Luxury and River Cruise Marketing Assets – Cruise Planners luxury travel marketing campaigns have won multiple Travvy and Magellan Awards. These include direct mail pieces that are designed in-house by Cruise Planners marketing team and feature resorts, cruises and escorted tours and move to help agents seal the deal with luxury travelers.
At the forum, luxury experts were on hand to inspire the agents on how to best reach, close and retain a luxury customer. Cruise Planners preferred travel partners were featured as keynote speakers, held one-on-one meetings and took part in luxury and river cruise panels hosted by Cruise Planners owners and executives. Keynote speakers included Larry Pimentel, President and CEO of Azamara Club Cruises; Mark Conroy, Managing Director of Silversea Cruises; and Edie Rodriguez, Americas Brand Chairman of Ponant.
Cruise Planners top-producing travel agents in both luxury and river cruise segments also took the stage to share their best practices and personal experience including tips for hosting successful events, providing high-touch customer experiences, and tips for easy yet effective ways to utilize videos and engage on social media. The forum closed with hands-on, interactive workshops that brought together agents and luxury travel partners for roundtable discussions led by Scott Koepf, Cruise Planners’ newest leadership team member and VP of Strategic Development.
“Luxury travel and impeccable service go hand-in-hand, so we’re equipping our agents with the tools and knowledge they need to stand out and ensure they have invaluable one-on-one meeting time with our luxury and river cruise partners,” Fee said. “This forum is about challenging our agents – whether they’ve been with us one year or 25 years – to expand their luxury travel and river cruise business in new ways.”
About Cruise Planners, an American Express Travel Representative:
Cruise Planners, an American Express Travel Representative, is the nation’s largest home-based travel agent franchise network in the travel industry. Cruise Planners operates a network of more than 1,800 franchise owners who independently book vacation and travel experiences for their clients. Headquartered in Coral Springs, Fla. since 1994, Cruise Planners supports its network of franchise owners with innovative marketing, booking and technology tools, professional development and training with the industry’s top executives. Cruise Planners and has been named the No.1 travel franchise by Entrepreneur magazine for 15 consecutive years and was recently featured in Entrepreneur as one of the top 30 franchise innovators in technology. Consistently named as one of the Top Women-Owned Businesses by the South Florida Business Journal, Cruise Planners is on the Inc. 5000 list as one of the fastest-growing private companies in America, has been ranked as the #1 travel franchise by Franchise Business Review for 6 years and is recognized as one of the Top Workplaces by the Sun Sentinel.
Cruise Planners has achieved top producer status with every major cruise line including Royal Caribbean International, Norwegian Cruise Line, Princess Cruises, Carnival Cruise Line, Celebrity Cruises, Holland America Line, MSC Cruises, Viking Cruises, Uniworld Boutique River Cruise Collection and Regent Seven Seas Cruises, as well as many land vendors such as Travel Impressions and Sandals and Beaches Resorts. As an American Express Travel Representative, Cruise Planners maintains a reputation for quality and offers exclusive American Express Travel benefits such as Pay with Points. Cruise Planners has earned the American Express Travel Representative Excellence Award since 2004, as well as numerous marketing, technology, franchise and philanthropy awards including an International Franchise Association FranTech award for innovation, Magellan Awards from Travel Weekly and Travvy Awards from travAlliance media. Cruise Planners celebrates diversity and supports are troops as one of the Top 50 franchises for Veterans according to GI magazine, the Top Franchise Brand for Veterans according to Franchise Business Review, one of the Top 25 franchises for African-Americans by Black Enterprise magazine and a member of the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association. Visit our website, http://www.cruiseplanners.com, for more information or to view the complete list of awards and honors.
Stay in Touch: Media can stay up-to-date with Cruise Planners by visiting our media room or Socially Yours page for social media updates and handles. For additional information or to make reservations, vacationers should locate a travel advisor near them. For those interested in becoming a franchise owner, please visit the Cruise Planners franchise website.
Media Contact:
Caitlin Gardner, Director of Public Relations
Cruise Planners, an American Express Travel Representative
CGardner(at)cruiseplanners.com
954-344-8060
Caitlin Gardner, Cruise Planners, http://www.cruiseplanners.com, 9543448060, [email protected]
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