Travel advisor franchise network Cruise Planners just held its annual convention — with the theme “CP World: Limitless” — in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where it celebrated the company’s 30th anniversary and made a number of announcements.
Most notable for the brand is its success in reaching more than $1 billion in sales in 2023, which proved to be a record year for both purchases and departures. Sales are up 39% over 2022, while overall departures are up 44%. The brand is projecting another sales increase for 2024, as future departures are already up 38% compared to the same period in 2022.
“I am inspired by our network of over 2,500 travel franchisees and our innovative home office team,” said Michelle Fee, founder and CEO of Cruise Planners. “Charting new courses, embracing change, and navigating uncharted waters have been the heart of our journey over the last 30 years.”
New Tools
Cruise Planners announced a number of new tools for its travel agents during the convention.
Maxx Intelligence now exists within CP Maxx and utilizes artificial intelligence and ChatGPT to create content for advisors. Issuing a prompt will generate responses to be inserted into e-cards, blog pages, cruise sheets, lead forms and more.
Maxx Creator, also a part of CP Maxx, can craft emails based on three layout templates that can be customized with banner images, messages, call-to-action links and content blocks. Agents can also make their own newsletter-style templates within the system.
Meanwhile, Email Capture in CP Maxx allows agents to store, track, view and search communications with clients. By adding a convenient address in the carbon copy (CC) field, the message will automatically be saved in the “sent email” area of the customer’s profile, where it can also be tacked onto the client reservation.
A CP Maxx Video Library is also available, with the ability to personalize the customer experience via uploaded videos or those recorded directly in CP Maxx. To make things even easier, agents have the option of making a script to streamline recordings, which can further be inserted into interactive LivePlanner sessions.
Following the success of the Where2Next Virtual consumer series introduced during the pandemic, Cruise Planners is set to enhance the program in 2024 to be more interactive. Clients will be able to choose their own path of discovering destinations, travel suppliers and more.
Additionally, LivePlanner Collections will gather assets shared between Cruise Planners and its supplier and tourism board partners, including links, images, videos and other useful documents. These can be presented to customers during interactive sessions, which advisors will soon be able to conduct with multiple clients simultaneously, perfect for family or group sales.
Lastly, the Cruise Planners booking engine has been further enhanced by integrating a new Cruise API (application programming interface) from Traveltek that enables pricing, live bookings with more lines than before, reservation retrieval and cruise-tour and group bookings.
Looking Ahead
In 2024, there will also be more than 25 in-person opportunities consisting of two bootcamps, three tech days, three sales academies, a land symposium, a luxury forum, six star university trainings, two elite summits and another annual convention, as well as Signature Travel Network regional events, fam opportunities and an annual conference.
“Cruise Planners’ success is based on our five main pillars — marketing, technology, training, support and our people and culture,” Fee said. “Our annual convention is the culmination of dedication, hard work, perseverance and innovation, and I could not be prouder to lead this amazing organization.”
