Tom Stieghorst
When Carnival Cruise Line gets travel agents together to explain to them "why use a travel advisor," there's an element of preaching to the choir.
About 200 advisors showed up at a reception Carnival execs held in Jersey City, N.J., last week for "Why Use a Travel Advisor," or WUATA, the consumer-awareness campaign the line has been running all year -- and few of the guests at the party would have disagreed with the theme.
Carnival has held WUATA receptions in Orlando, and another in Toronto. But because the campaign is really geared to consumers, it is worthwhile to get agents up to speed on the campaign facets, because they may not be aware of what it is and how it is supposed to work for them.
Particularly effective, I thought, were the recorded video testimonials from several passengers about how wonderful their travel agents were. It's hardly a new idea, getting third party endorsements, but the cruise industry may not do enough of it, and agents were happy to see their praises sung by satisfied customers.
Adolfo Perez, Carnival's senior vice president for global sales and trade marketing, said he solicited the stories about six months ago by putting a notice on his Facebook page.
In one testimonial, a woman books a cruise for herself and her boyfriend for her 50th birthday. "How hard could it be?" she figures before adding "But then lots of little things just weren't getting finalized."
She put a post on Facebook, and the next day she was surprised to see a response at 4 a.m. that morning from a travel advisor named Janice. "That's when she saw my post and sent a message saying she could help. And, boy, did she."
Before long, the client is shown having birthday dessert and wine ordered for her by the captain. "I was treated amazingly, and honestly I felt like a queen," she said, adding that Janice is now "my travel agent for life."
In another video, a woman named Regina described how her mother died, and how her mother loved to go to the Turks and Caicos more than anywhere else. Regina and her family were determined to scatter her ashes there, although they worried it would be difficult.
"But Diana, our travel agent, made it easy. So a year later, that's what we did. It brought us all a lot of peace. And joy. Diana, thank you!" Regina said.
Perez said the videos showed the value of having a travel advisor relationship when consumers set out to explore the travel jungle.
"When you find a great travel agent, you've really hit a pot of gold, because they're the ones that help you make the right decisions about the vacations you go on," he said.