SAN DIEGO -- Beginning early next year, members of Ensemble
Travel Group will have access to the University of Ensemble (U of E), which
will function as a member's "go-to source for all things related to
training," said co-president Lindsay Pearlman at the travel agency
consortium's annual conference.
The program, which will supplement current educational
efforts, will offer live and online training, and specialist and
certification programs.
"From product knowledge and business intelligence to
fams and partnerships with leading educational organizations, U of E will
deliver the difference for you to hit the ground running and faster than your
competition," Pearlman said to conference attendees during the
conference's opening session.
U of E programs include weekly "Take 30 Thursday"
webinars that offer members supplier training, along with a 22-module,
self-paced "Ensemble Expert Certification Course" and several
specialist courses from both Ensemble and preferred partners.
A rewards system called E-Perks will be introduced, enabling
agents to earn points to be used toward other educational, experiential or
personal items.
A soft launch of the program will take place before the end
of the year, and by the first quarter of 2017 U of E will be hosted within the
Ensemble Extranet.
Also new is Monarch, a marketing platform launching in
January that will allow agents to operate their own direct email marketing
campaign, and Navigate, an integrated booking engine that will provide members
with aggregate data and insight into travel and sales trends.
In the past few years, the consortium has operated several
booking engines, including Air Express, Cruise Express, Hotel Express, On
Location Express and Car Express, but Pearlman said all of them will be
integrated into Navigate in the coming months, beginning with Cruise Express.
Within the cooperative, challenges arose when attempting to
roll out Aviate, the global air program announced at last year's conference, to
the North American market. Although Ensemble had hoped to launch in Australia
and North America at the same time, it realized that more time was required to
fully modify Australia-based Aviate into a product suiting the needs of agents
in the U.S. and Canada.