by Lacey Pfalz
Last updated: 10:45 AM ET, Tue December 5, 2023
Cruise Planners celebrated its 30th anniversary during its annual convention at the Broward County Convention Center at the end of November, in which several new AI-based tools for Cruise Planners travel advisors were announced.
The convention, the theme of which was “Limitless,” welcomed 1,000 travel advisors in attendance and preceded a 2-night sailing onboard the new Celebrity Ascent. It was attended by supplier executives and representatives from several travel companies, cruise lines and all-inclusive resorts.
During the convention, Michelle Fee, Founder and CEO and other major Cruise Planners executives shared that 2023 was a record year for purchases and departures, reaching $1 billion in sales.
“Cruise Planners success is based on our five main pillars – Marketing, Technology, Training, Support and our People & Culture,” said Michelle Fee. “Our annual convention is the culmination of dedication, hard work, perseverance and innovation and I could not be more proud to lead this amazing organization.”
They also announced several new tools, including AI-based technology, for Cruise Planners franchise owners.
New AI-based Tools
Maxx Intelligence is a new tool within CP Maxx that utilizes AI and ChatGPT to help with content creation and generation of new content. When enabled, travel advisors can insert a prompt to generate ecards, blog pages, lead forms and more.
Along with this is Maxx Creator, which advisors can use to generate emails to send to their clients using a selection of pre-made email formats to help their marketing efforts. Advisors can also create and save their own templates.
Other Technology Updates
Another new CP Maxx tool is email capture, which allows advisors to easily store, track and view client email communications across email platforms. When sending an email, advisors will simply add a specific email address into the carbon copy, or CC, field, which will then send the email directly to the “Sent Email” area of the email section of the client’s profile in CP Maxx.
Additionally, travel advisors who want to upload or record their own video to include in marketing or during LivePlanner sessions can now do so with CP Maxx’s new Video Library tool, which can create scripts and more.
Cruise Planners’ booking engine has also been integrated with a new Cruise API from Traveltek, allowing travel advisors to get pricing, make bookings and retrieve cruise reservations. In the future, advisors will be able to book more cruise lines, along with cruise tours and group spacing through this resource.
Other Key Resources
LivePlanner Collections are a new way to engage clients in the discussions surrounding their next vacation. Advisors can present Collections during a LivePlanner session, bringing supplier information directly to their clients through links, images, videos and other resources.
Additionally, an upcoming tool will be LivePlanner group sessions, in which advisors can host a LivePlanner session with more than one client at a time. This will go live in 2024 to help support family travel and groups.
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