Cruise Planners-American Express Travel is the largest home-based travel agent network in the cruise industry, featuring more than 800 franchise owners. Last year CEO Michelle Fee, CFO Tom Kruszewski and COO Vicky Garcia acquired the company from Palm Beach Capital, a private equity investment firm that had been the majority owner of Cruise Planners since 2005. We sat down with Fee to discuss how the company has changed and evolved during its 20-year history, and why it's important for independent agent to join a host agency.
TravelPulse: When was Cruise Planners conceived and how has it changed and evolved over the years?
Michelle Fee: We're actually celebrating our 20th year anniversary this year. We were a full-service travel agency in our little local community and we realized we had to change or we were going to become dinosaurs. So we came up with this concept of driving in independent contractors and building this outside sales force.
Twenty years ago there was no email and nobody had a Web site. It was really difficult to communicate - we used to do so via fax. We did have a backend office and there was this little chat room where could post information for our agents to view but they couldn't respond or anything like that. We'd make little copies of special deals on pink and green paper and then every Friday we'd mail it out to all the reps around the country.
The first Cruise Planners class had five people in it. We started out with just the three of us - me, Lynn Korn and Marvin Davis. We were the three cofounders. They've since retired.
When we started, host agencies were in their infancy. Twenty years later it's a different story. The model has completely evolved. We now have over 60 home office staff. Their jobs are 100 percent to support our agent community.
We have a marketing team, we have a technology team, we have a business development team - so we have teams of people now whose sole responsibility is to help our agents grow their business.
TP: What are the pluses and minuses of being with a host versus being independent?
MF: I don't get it when agents thinks they can do it alone, because it's really hard to compete with big host agencies. We're a business in a box. We do things for our agents that allow them to do what they do best, which is sell travel.
Because all our agents do business as Cruise Planners and not individually we're able to market one message. We just do it automatically and then we send the agent an email saying, 'This was sent to this list of customers and so and so forth.'
So I don't really get it when an agent decides that they want to go it alone because they can't compete with the deals. Our whole job is to negotiate with cruise lines. So one person, maybe someone who's running a small local travel agency, they can't be great marketers, great technology and great sales people. There's not one person who has all of that within one space. We're that person for our agents.
TP: What kind of travel do Cruise Planners agents book?
MF: We book everything. Our core business is cruise but we evolved into being top producers for most every major tour company as well. We realized years ago that not everyone wants to cruise every year so we evolved our tour and land programs as well.
TP: What is the greatest challenge facing the travel advisor community and do you have a recommended course of action?
MF: The greatest challenge is competing in the marketplace. There are so many deals and bargains out there. Again, I think if agents align themselves with the right host they can compete.
We create package deals for our agents to go to market with - things that give them a competitive edge. I think trying to compete with some of the online players can be difficult. So you have to have the products behind you.
TP: What is your consortium and why?
MF: Obviously we're with American Express and we're very passionate about that fact. It certainly brings credibility to a home-based agent who's new to the business. Eighty percent of the people that we bring on board have never been in travel before.
Besides all the other tools that every other consortia brings, American Express brings that credibility. Also nobody else can redeem pay with points. But we can. We have access to card members. So we have things that a normal consortium would not have the ability to access.
TP: How has the image of independent contractors changed since the inception of Cruise Planners?
MF: There used to be a travel agency on every single corner. In our local community we probably had 20 of them. Today if you drove the neighborhood you're lucky if you find one or two.
We're just doing business differently. I think home-based agents are so much more accepted today than ever before.
TP: How was business last year and how does it look going forward?
MF: We had a really good year. Certainly at the beginning of the year there was a little hiccup when cruise lines were getting negative PR. It started out strong and then it had a little blip and then it went right back - because cruisers are always going to cruise. They get that things that happen. It's a machine out in the water and sometimes things do happen.
This year we're actually off to an amazing start. We bring in new agents every eight weeks. We grow every year and this year is no exception.
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