Carnival Cruise Line has had a long and fruitful relationship with travel agents. Few understand that like Adolfo Perez, CCL's vice president of trade sales & marketing. It was under his guidance that the line launched "Onboard With You," a program designed to strengthen the bonds with agents. A year later, the program is still going strong. We sat down with Perez to see what the last year had taught him.
TravelPulse: Why did you start the Onboard with You, Together We're Better initiative?
Adolfo Perez: Being a 30-year Carnival veteran, I've seen first-hand the impact that travel agents have to Carnival. We had a lot of really good programs for travel agents already in place, but there was an opportunity to do even more. I wanted everyone in our trade sales, marketing and engagement teams to be on the same page with our trade partners. Onboard With You, Together We're Better is a result of that. One year strong, I think collectively we're even better than before.
TP: What makes the Onboard with You, Together We're Better Program special?
AP: Our Onboard with You program really encompasses all of what we do to help our travel partners succeed.
Whether it's our promise to be a good business partner, offer competitive commissions, the amazing GoCCL travel agent portal, our awesome Carnival Passport training system or our top-notch BDMs, everything we do is about being onboard with you.
In addition to that, for my team and me, our Onboard with You travel agent support platform is even more than all those great things.
For us, it is truly our guiding principle we use to make every decision that impacts our travel agent partners. I think it's really special because it does impact everything we do for our partners.
TP: How have travel partners responded to the Onboard with You program since it began in September 2015?
AP: It's hard to say how agents have specifically responded to "Onboard with You" since it's not a one-off program you can point to and say usage has gone up by X percent or down Y percent.
I do know that travel agents are increasingly using the programs and systems that are part of Onboard with You and benefit from all of the great things behind it, like our commission structure change last year.
My goal with Onboard with You is to really personify and give life to our overall attitude and appreciation for agents' hard work and support in the past, present and in the future.
I believe actions speak louder than words and my goal is to make decisions and put actions into place that truly support our agent partners.
Agents believing in us, trusting us, and supporting us is how I measure its success. We're on our way and have a made a lot of progress, but we still have a lot of work to do. I can promise you we're up for the challenge and we are a competitive and relentless team.
TP: As you enter your second year of this program, do you have a special message you'd like to convey to travel partners?
AP: I know we've had bumps in the road in our relationship with our travel partners in recent years. I'd be lying if I didn't say that.
I know we have a lot of work to do to rebuild those relationships and I hope that my team's commitment to Onboard with You and the very positive changes we've made and continue to work on are clear and evident to our travel partners.
We're never going to be perfect, that would be another lie (LOL). But my team and I are committed to being the best sales force in the industry and we are committed to doing the right things that help us both grow and succeed.
TP: What did you do to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the OBWY platform?
AP: As part of the celebration, we launched a new "Together We're Better" trade ad campaign back in September, celebrating the importance of the strong partnership between Carnival and the travel agent community.
Additionally, we had an "Onboard with You Anniversary Contest" that gave agents the opportunity to share the most helpful sales tip they have learned over the past year by submitting it to our trade Facebook page.
Our grand prize winner received a complimentary Carnival cruise for two in the Caribbean with balcony accommodations. Our runner-up won a $100 gift card and 100 additional winners won one of our popular "Travel Agents Rock" t-shirts. These shirts are so popular with agents!
The last component of the anniversary celebrations will last a bit longer. Our new "Together We're Better" travel partner tour hosted by our business development managers will visit more than 100 cities in North America.
The tour is different than others we've had in that it features small-scale events that are designed to give travel partners more opportunities to engage one-on-one with our sales team while learning sales success strategies and new product information. This kicked off back in October and will conclude in March 2017.
TP: Carnival has had some exciting news for agents recently. How does that all that fit into Onboard with You?
AP: We've had very exciting news here at Carnival Cruise Line lately!
The new Carnival Horizon as well as the announcement for the order of our two new super LNG ships will be a huge focal point of our 100-city tour as well as numerous other training initiatives we launch related to OBWY on an ongoing basis.
It's very important to us that we ensure the agent community is well informed and versed in selling these exciting new ships so we'll be focusing heavily on featuring them in OBWY related activities and trainings in the months ahead.
As we've shared, the 133,500-ton Carnival Horizon is our second Vista-class ship and is set to debut in 2018 - so not too far off from now.
And we just recently announced the order of two 180,000-ton ships - the largest ever build for Carnival - that will be powered by liquefied natural gas. These ships are being designed under Carnival Corp.'s exclusive "green cruising" design and will mark the first time an LNG-powered cruise ship is based in North America. The ships will debut in 2020 and 2022.
So there is much to cover in the OBWY trainings and events we have in the months ahead - these are definitely going to be packed with new information agents won't want to miss.
TP: What does the future of Onboard with You look like?
AP: I don't think Onboard with You will change in the future. Yes, we'll continue to add programs, improve things, and make working with us easier and more profitable, but at its heart, Onboard with You is about our attitude and our mission as it relates to our travel agent partners.
That needs to be our focus and everything else will fall into place
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