MIAMI - The Cruise Lines International Association's new chairman,
Vicki Freed, said agent training in selling cruises will be a main
focus of her two-year tenure.
Freed, who is senior vice president of sales and marketing for
Carnival Cruise Lines, said CLIA has done a good job in keeping its
training materials up to date, but added that many agents are under
the false impression that once they have taken a CLIA course there
is no need to take another. "Agents in the business for awhile
think nothing is new, and that's simply not true. I think we
haven't told the story well," she said.
For agents who cannot find time to attend courses, CLIA is beta
testing agent-training sessions on its Web site. The offering will
be available in 1999. Agents will gain access to the site's
training materials by typing in their CLIA membership number, Freed
said.
CLIA also offers a series of 12 training seminars and courses on
video. They are free to CLIA members, and available for a nominal
fee to other agents. "Travel agents can learn a lot from these
one-hour video tapes," she said.
CLIA offers three basic courses: Cruise Vacations, an
Introduction; Principles of Professional Selling, and Power Selling
Techniques.
The latter features different ways to close a deal, "which are
very different now [from what they were] five years ago," Freed
said. She said, for instance, that consumers might be more
interested now in hearing about opportunities for rest and
relaxation rather than of the myriad of activities offered on
ships.
Additional seminars include Group Sales Made Easy and Direct
Mail That Sells.
The seminars are offered at agent shows and Freed said any group
of agents can request a seminar to be held in their city. If the
group guarantees that 50 agents will attend, CLIA will not charge
for the presentation.
In addition to training, Freed said that under her tenure CLIA
will continue to push its consumer marketing program, with the
theme "You Haven't Lived Until You've Cruised."
She said that, for 1999, cruise lines have allotted $5 million
to the program, which had a start-up budget of $8 million. The
program includes a cruise vacation planner, available by calling
(888) Y-CRUISE or by ordering through CLIA's Web site, www.cruising.org.
Consumers who call the toll-free number are encouraged to use an
agent, and CLIA agencies can buy a list of callers.
By the end of the year, Freed said, the campaign will have
mailed out 500,000 planners and that 39% of the callers have
subsequently cruised.
As a continuation of its consumer effort, CLIA is developing
plans for consumer travel shows to be held in local markets, Freed
said. She said she expects the shows to attract thousands of
consumers and to include participation by CLIA agents.