Costa Cruises Kicks Off the New Year with 'Here for You' Campaign

WHY IT RATES: This new program with Costa Cruises will reward travel agents for January bookings - Eric Bowman, TravelPulse Senior Editor

Costa Cruises is expressing to its travel partners it is "Here for You" with its latest appreciation program that offers agents an opportunity to earn gift cards and a chance to win a year's supply of one of 'Italy's Finest" brands.

In Costa's Here for You program, every travel agent who makes a booking in January is entered into a drawing for a $100 American Express gift card. The cruise line will award one gift card every day in January. In addition, one grand prize winner will be drawn from all bookings made in January. The grand prize winner will receive a year's supply of one of Italy's Finest brands: Illy Caffé, Barilla pasta, Ferrari sparkling wine or Nutella.

"A reward is a gesture of appreciation for exceptional effort, and the Here for You program thanks our travel agent partners with a bonus reward for booking a Costa cruise," said Scott Knutson, vice president of sales and marketing for Costa Cruises North America. "Costa’s travel agent partners provide dedicated and enthusiastic support, and we want to begin 2017 by showing them our appreciation."

In addition to Here for You, the line has launched Costa Extra, a new travel agent web portal featuring fresh promotions, sales tips, images, videos, webinars and other tools to help boost sales. Webinars will be added quarterly, highlighting the brand and identifying prospective cruisers and where to find them. Future webinars will cover sales skills, group offers and agent benefits of working with Costa.

SOURCE: A Costa Cruises press release.