PHOTO: Vacation.com senior vice president of sales Kevin Weiser. (Courtesy of Vacation.com)
With the integration of Cruise Holidays into Vacation.com complete, Cruise Holidays agents had the chance to attend their first-ever Vacation annual trade show and conference.
"The direct feedback has been great," said Kevin Weisner, Vacation.com's senior vice president of sales, adding that 102 Cruise Holidays agents turned out for the 17th annual conference aboard Quantum of the Seas. "But I also think what's exciting is the secondary feedback I've been getting in terms of what's being said when I'm not in the room, which has also been very positive."
While Cruise Holidays will no longer feature its own annual conference, exclusive Cruise Holidays-only events will be incorporated into the Vacation.com conference. This year's conference, for instance, includes a Cruise Holidays welcome reception, awards ceremony, and question-and-answer and supplier roundtable sessions.
Cruise Holidays will also continue to hold its annual cruise recognizing its high-performing President's Circle agents, which this year will take place on a river cruise in the south of the France.
"What we're trying to do is preserve the family feel of Cruise Holidays, but give them access to everything else that Vacation.com has to offer," said Weisner, who late last year was promoted from senior vice president of Cruise Holidays to his current role. "They're getting to see what Vacation.com is all about in a way that you can only do at a conference."
For starters, Cruise Holidays agencies now have access to a formidably broadened portfolio of preferred suppliers. "This gives Cruise Holidays agencies the opportunity to decide what they want their businesses to be today, because they're not boxed in because they don't have access," he said.
In addition to Agent Snapshot, Cruise Holidays agencies are also now able to capitalize on Vacation.com's Engagement marketing program, which will not only help them more efficiently market their traditionally offerings, but grow their businesses in other areas as well. "We previously had a very limited opportunity to market non-cruise suppliers," Weisner said. "For those agencies that do have the desire to expand their portfolios and what they're offering their customers - i.e., land-based tours - they now have access to direct marketing and email marketing in that space."
Vacation.com's CruisePRO, meanwhile, helps agencies more easily search, sell, book and manage cruise vacations. "We have 15 cruise lines that are bookable inside the system and 20 that are accessible," he said. "So if your brand is Cruise Holidays, we can provide you with a great booking tool for cruises. There's a huge efficiency lift there."
CruisePRO bookings are imported into into Cruise Holidays' AgentMate point of sale operating system, which has been enhanced with an array of new capabilities. "All that client data comes back over, so it really adds an efficiency," said Weisner.
In addition to still being able to continue to utilize the brand's signature AgentMate system, Cruise Holidays will still offer its agencies branded websites, Weisner said.
Cruise Holidays agencies, of course, no longer pay licensing fees that were required under its former franchise business model. "We're able to provide comparable services to what what they had, increase their access to suppliers and lower their fees significantly," said Weisner. "It was a given that that would be a good thing."
For the time being, there are no plans to add Cruise Holidays' 168 locations. "Through the transition period, we made the decision that to take on any new members and tie up the resources we would need to train them wouldn't be the right thing for our existing members," Weisner said. "We really need to keep our attention on them first."
By the end of June, Weisner said the company would begin to reach out to those individuals who have expressed interest in opening Cruise Holidays locations. "Our focus, though, is still growing," he said. "It's growing same-store sales."
In the final analysis, what Vacation.com offers its member agencies, including Cruise Holidays stores, is the ability to focus on what they do best: selling travel.
"The idea is to unburden agencies from tasks and routines so they can really focus on their customers," he said. "For me, that's the essence of it."
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