Cruise Planners Proclaims “It’s Never Enough,” on its Mission to Remain the Best Home-Based Travel Agency
CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. (PRWEB) December 07, 2018 -- Cruise Planners, an American Express Travel Representative, announced technology enhancements and new launches designed to further accelerate Cruise Planners’ franchise owners’ travel sales at the company’s annual - Convention. This year’s Convention kicked off the celebration of its 25 years of success and the leadership team reflected on how far Cruise Planners had come, from the time when it began with just 5 agents to today as the nation’s largest home-based travel franchise.
“Cruise Planners agents travel the world, so they need to be able to run their business from anywhere which is why we continue to invest so heavily in providing them with the best technology,” Brian Shultz, CIO of Cruise Planners. “We always put our travel advisors first, so we create tools to help them run their businesses better and we know by doing this, it strengthens their connection with their clients from both a personal and digital standpoint.”
In front of 600 travel advisors, Michelle Fee, CEO; Vicky Garcia, COO; and Brian Shultz, CIO, reviewed enhancements to CP Maxx, Cruise Planners’ proprietary CRM and booking system launched last year, as well as several new tools.
“Cruise Planners without a doubt delivered “The Greatest Show” by showcasing tools with new and enhanced features to help drive travel advisor success in everything cruise and land travel,” Shultz said.
The newest tech launches and enhancements of many Cruise Planners applications include:
New, Stunning Consumer Websites – These mobile-responsive websites are in the design phase and will be launched in 2019. These will give agents the ability to have up to three different types of consumer-facing sites – contemporary, luxury and land travel – to satisfy all client types and agent niches.
Mobile App Enhancements – Cruise Planners continues to be the only home-based travel franchise to offer multiple mobile apps, both of which have been updated to improve usability.
- CP Mobile allows consumers to manage their trips while traveling, book future trips and connect with their travel advisor.
- CP Maxx, a mobile app for Cruise Planners travel advisors, will be relaunching in early 2019 to help them manage their business from the palm of their hand.
Driving Leads to Advisors at No Cost – Cruise Planners will be refreshing its corporate website with enhanced smart forms and data capture with the goal of driving more leads directly to its travel agents. Agents immediately receive an email notification and the client information is automatically added to the travel advisor’s client database.
Alexa Skills Now with Alexa Show Capabilities – After being the first in the industry to launch two Alexa skills last year, Cruise Planners continues to innovate with the visual version of the popular voice-activated technology, Alexa Show. This makes it even easier for agents to manage their business with an enhanced virtual personal assistant.
Flight Tools Built in to CP Maxx – Cruise Planners agents can easily manage and full-service statuses through Cruise Planners’ partnerships with GMT, a top-rated air consolidator. The Find a Flight tool allows agents to easily compare rates for all classes of service and agents can mark up the rates when there is a substantial pricing advantage – another way to earn increased commissions for Cruise Planners advisors. Another integration for flights is the Flight Look-Up Tool, allowing agents to easily look up and log flight details for clients who may have purchased their own flights – a big time-saving for Cruise Planners agents.
Group Price Advantage – This new feature within CP Maxx quickly alerts agents during the cruise search to identify a sailing where Cruise Planners has a Home Office Group Price Advantage. They can easily compare current published rates for specific categories with Home Office Groups Rates. They can also perform a search to only see sailings where there is a Group Pricing Advantage.
CP Partner Resources with Vacation Wizard Technology – A new interactive supplier partner database. When travel advisors have close to 200 travel suppliers in their database, finding the right supplier for a customer can be difficult. The new Vacation Wizard, within CP Partner Resources, allows agents to easily find the right supplier based on certain criteria such as travel style, travel category, land or cruise or destination specific. The tool narrows down and shows the results and even allows for quick comparison on commission levels and other supplier information such as destinations that they provide in their portfolio.
“Cruise Planners travel advisors’ sales are up 20% since launching CP Maxx last year, and we know that with the technology enhancements just announced, we’ll continue this incredible sales growth in the future,” said Michelle Fee, CEO and Founder of Cruise Planners. “It’s Never Enough for Cruise Planners.”
To see more announcements from Cruise Planners’ annual Convention, please view the first release here.
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 2,000 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.
Caitlin Gardner, Cruise Planners, http://www.cruiseplanners.com, 9543448060, [email protected]
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