blog post

It was a beautiful day here in sunny Fort Lauderdale for the first day of our anticipated Cruise Planners/American Express annual convention. Agents awoke to the sun shining across the blue Atlantic and as Royal Caribbean’s new Allure of the Seas sailed into port, we were all reminded just how much we love what we do…Selling cruise experiences!

Convention kicked off with a keynote address by Rick Sasso, president of MSC Cruises, which recognized the perfect position agents are in to embrace change and capitalize on the ever changing and ever growing cruise industry. Though the country has suffered the impacts of the recent economic downturn, the cruise industry continues to thrive with new ships and high occupancy. The industry forecast set up CEO Michelle Fee for her introduction of this year’s theme of “C.H.A.N.G.E.” – an acronym that stands for Cruise Planners, Have Fun, Agents, New Stuff, Growth and Everyone.

To better support Cruise Planners’ agents, the executives announced a number of upgrades to the company’s arsenal of stellar services to help agents serve clients, work faster and SELL! Highlights include:

• CP Magazine
• CP iPhone App
• CPpod 3.0
• Cruise Planners University Senior Track
• CP VIP Program
• CP International Smart Phone

The biggest and most exciting announcement of the day came from Brian Shultz, Cruise Planners’ senior director of information technology, revealing upgrades to eREZ^SM  - from eREZ Offline, allowing agents to pull client booking records without connecting to the Internet, to eREZ Households, a function to manage and streamline client data, hand-in-hand with CPpod. But what caused the most buzz today was the announcement that eREZ^SM will soon be powered with LIVE cruise line cabin availability along with itineraries!

Carnival Cruise Lines, a Cruise Planners preferred partner, closed off the opening sessions awarding top agent Nancy Bogert. Congrats, Nancy!

More news is on the way from the peer-to-peer breakout sessions.