By Rusty Pickett
MCC, ECC

If you have been sitting on the fence about attending Travel Trade’s 25th Annual CRUISE-A-THON June 1-4 in Seattle, get off the couch and register! Now!
I just finished attending the CLIA Cruise360 in Ft. Lauderdale and there is a bunch of great new information out there. There was a renewed and vigorous enthusiasm by all the cruise lines to emphasize how important and essential travel agents are to their business.
In the past, we all listened to virtually all cruise lines extol the virtue of the agent community, but I was never really convinced that they were totally convinced. But I’m now certain that we are the essential element of their business plan to fill the newbuilds that continue to come at a wonderfully rapid rate. It’s hard to put your finger on, but there was a coziness, warmth and sincerity to their message that was exceptionally well received by the assembled agents. Much of both the panel discussions and the trade show exhibits were focused on the value of the agent. It was a warm and fuzzy feeling. And you can expect more of that at Travel Trade’s C-A-T!

Some new bullets:
• Carnival’s Vicki Freed announced that the Carnival Vacation Club sellers have been totally removed from the five ships that they had been marketing on. She said this was primarily in response to agent feedback that these pretty aggressive sellers were detracting from the overall cruise experience. Also Carnival has eliminated the log-in page on their Web site for customers to gather information about Carnival cruisers. This, again, was in response to agent feedback stating that this was in effect a form of direct marketing.
• At our CLIA Travel Agent Advisory Board Meeting (of which I am a member), CLIA committed to closely studying the membership renewal process and content. Most importantly, membership renewal will not be announced until the membership packages can be sent out in a real time manner. This is a different process than in the past, when members could renew in the fall, but packages weren’t sent out until later in the year. Additionally, what the new membership package will consist of is under total review. There was a strong feeling at the Board Meeting that the time is right to make sure that the membership kit is structured to be fully relevant to the membership demographic of the 21st century. Members will see the results of this examination over this year and next!
During an impromptu discussion, one of my NACTA Regional Area Managers stated that he gets many questions from newer agents about which of the many educational courses out there should they take. The answer is pretty simple. Take the courses that will get you certified in that travel segment you would like to sell, and then take the product courses of your “preferred suppliers” — the product that you sell the most! After you get your business feet on the ground, you can expand your knowledge base to new horizons opened up by taking additional courses!
This should clearly be part of your thought process as you prepare for C-A-T, where there is a wealth of knowledge available for the harvesting if you attend!
As we left Ft. Lauderdale, most if not all had a wonderful feeling that this is the right time to be a professional seller of travel! As Dr. Marc Mancini stated, only in this industry do senior executives of our suppliers mingle openly and enthusiastically with all of their sellers — really enforcing the total team concept.

See you in Seattle!

Russell (Rusty) Pickett is a retired career Naval officer. He has a BS from Yale University and an MBA from Charleston Southern University. As a home based agent, he founded Shellback Cruises, a cruise-oriented agency based in Charleston, SC, in 1999.