CLIA is revamping its educational platform and will showcase its new educational model with a class that it has created for Travel Weekly's CruiseWorld in Fort Lauderdale, which runs from Nov. 6 to 10.
Margaret Murphy, CLIA's senior vice president of marketing and trade relations, said CLIA surveyed its members and found that they wanted three things when it comes to education: classes in 30- or 60-minute sessions, highly targeted content and a focus on sales and marketing.
CLIA is also introducing live online classes, which it will hold in addition to face-to-face training. And it will continue its webinars, as well.
Murphy said that some agents want all training to be virtual because they don't want to leave their offices. Others feel they learn best in a classroom, working with instructors and classmates face-to-face.
"The vast majority are in the middle," Murphy said. "At times they want to go in person … but other times they want to be able to take the course at 1 a.m. on July Fourth. We are trying to hit that sweet spot which offers some of both."
CLIA's CruiseWorld course "What's My Line?" is designed to help agents sell to new or first-time cruisers.
"We are going to help them tell the story in a very succinct and powerful way, because consumers are pressed for time as well," Murphy said.
An agent's opening sentences when telling consumers about the great value a cruise vacation offers are crucial, said Murphy. And that opening varies depending on whether the consumer is a millennial or a baby boomer or someone interested in a family cruise.
Murphy said that the session will give agents some "great openings and a great way to tell the story."
The class and all of CLIA's new content will be "low on lecture and high on engagement," said Murphy.
CLIA will redesign all of the 38 courses in its current curriculum throughout the next year, Murphy said. They will all be more targeted and broken into 30- or 60-minute components. She said that some classes, such as cruise geography, take several hours to complete. But CLIA will break classes like that into 30-minute segments.
This fall it will pilot its first online live instructor class.
"This is great for remote locations," Murphy said. In some parts of the country, fewer than 10 agents may show up for CLIA training, she said. The online live instructor courses address this problem, she said, and will replace face-to-face training in locations with small numbers of agents. Attendees will be able to ask questions and get the same immediate response they would get in a face-to-face class. These sessions will be recorded so agents can access them on demand.
It will continue to offer webinars and continue to hold face-to-face classes at industry events such as consortia meetings and at CLIA events such as Cruise3sixty. It will also continue to offer regional training.
"We are totally committed to in-person training," Murphy said.
Over the years CLIA has removed some courses from its curriculum and usually added about six. Its goal is to roll out more courses annually, testing them with a small subset of agents and then rolling them out to the broader agent community, Murphy said.
She said that CLIA's commitment to training extends to certification.
"We believe that going forward certification is going to be even more important," she said, adding that certification establishes an agent's credentials.
Register for CruiseWorld at www.cruiseworldshow.com.