By Mary Brutscher

If you are looking for Charlie Dubinsky, chances are you will find him sailing with his Cruise and Travel University seminars. Charlie is a 17-year veteran in the travel industry with the last five years devoted to Cruise and Travel Agents Only. His programs and seminars are geared to a true learning experience and he is known for insisting on quality content for the courses presented at each seminar. Home Based agents not only can increase their knowledge of the products they sell with these seminars, but also develop new sales techniques, hone customer service techniques and, of course, network with other agents and travel professionals.

Q: Please give me a little background information on yourself.
A: I have been married to my wonderful wife, Gaynell, for 35 years. We have two children and seven grandkids. I have been in the travel industry for 17 years. Prior to this, I was in the financial world teaching and managing for 10 years, and before that I was part of the management team working for Woolco (similar to today’s K-mart or Wal-Mart).

Q: What motivated you to begin Cruise Agent Only and eventually branch out to Cruise and Travel Agents?
A: Cruise Agent Only started because I saw a need for agents to work together and not be afraid of one another. This began in the cabin availability area where agents sell into one another’s inventory in order to assist each other. This helps agents to qualify for the Tour Conductors, Bonus Commissions, Group Amenity Points and other benefits of working with groups.
As for Cruise and Travel Agents, it was more of a name change rather than “branching out.” I would receive regular questions from agents asking, “I sell more than cruises, can I join your organization?” It is and has always been our policy of allowing any travel agent the opportunity of joining and participating in our programs. We changed the name to reflect that the complete travel community is welcome. The name change also extended to Cruise University — now Cruise and Travel University, as we have always held courses that were beneficial to all travel agents — not just the cruise agents.

Q. How does your seminar program differ from other seminars?
A. Cruise and Travel University differs in numerous ways. First, we offer the only Curriculum Guarantee in the industry for travel agent training at sea. We promise that all courses will be offered as presented on EVERY Cruise and Travel University event. Agents can have the complete confidence that classes will not be canceled. NO minimum number of travel agent attendees is required. When agents decide to attend Cruise and Travel University they have the certainty that we will provide an educational experience and not just a cruise.
Secondly, our curriculum is reviewed, edited and continually assessed by industry educator Dr. Marc Mancini, and this has been the case since 2004.
Every class also has a testing component, which we are in the process of placing online. Agents have to pass three tests that are presented at the completion of the class in order to earn their Travel Sales Certification (TSC).
All classes have a continuing education factor as well, so those agents who attain Level 1 TSC can return for Level 2 certification and move forward to Level 3 and so on. Agents want and understand the need for continuing education in the travel industry.
Finally, we continuously and regularly bring in industry leaders as presenters for our programs. These are industry leaders such as Mancini, Dave Stockert, Keith Powell, Mike Marchev, Joachim de Posada, Bob Abrams, Nancy Kist and Olympian Ruben Gonzalez, just to name a few.
CLIA trainers Tom Cogan, Bernie Blomquist, Heidi Olsen, Cella Baker and John Bateman have also participated on numerous Cruise and Travel Universities over the years. We have also had participation from The Travel Institute, as well. In fact, our curriculum is recognized by The Travel Institute for continuing education credits for those agents who have earned their CTA and CTC designations.
Mancini is working on developing three new classes that will be announced later this year. We are also working on some new classes. This will bring our foundation courses up from three to eight, or possibly as many as 10, classes for Level 1 Travel Sales Certification within the next 12 months.

Q. What are some of the subjects your seminars have covered in the past?
A. They’ve been numerous and varied. To name a few, Home Based Agent, Developing Group Sales, Prospecting, many of the CLIA classes, Honeymoon and Wedding and Caribbean and Lifestyle.

Q. I understand you are going to be offering some new programs. Would you like to share some of that information?
A. We are looking into some land based training around the country, since not all agents are able to get away for seven days. We are holding our first four and five night Cruise and Travel Universities in October departing from New Orleans to evaluate the interest in the short cruise training.

Q. How many seminars do you offer annually?
A. This number is growing but is contingent upon the cruise lines’ participation. Last year, we held nine Cruise and Travel Universities on various cruise lines: Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Costa, Princess, Norwegian and MSC. The management teams from all of the cruise lines understand that Cruise and Travel University is a real working cruise and not a reason to take a vacation, since classes are mandatory on each of our seminars.
Agents who attend Cruise and Travel University can expect to spend 20-plus hours in class during a 7-day cruise. Right now, Carnival is our biggest supporter for our Cruise and Travel University travel agent training program.

Q. Will this remain about the same in the future or will you add more?
A. We are always looking at increasing our program in numbers presented, as well as cruise line participants. I hope they are reading this (laughter).

Q. What else does Cruise and Travel Agents have to offer to agents?
A. Many agents are familiar with Cruise and Travel University and forget that our Web site has much to offer. This is where the real networking is done. Agents have access to the Cabin Availability, Discussion Group, Message Board, Coupon Bazaar, and Bits and Pieces, and receive a subscription to Fam News, as well. We also send out a weekly newsletter. This is not a typical travel newsletter but more of a motivational and how-to newsletter.

If you have not had the opportunity of reading some of Charlie’s tips and newsletters, I highly recommend you subscribe to his newsletter and explore what Cruise and Travel Agents has to offer. For more information, please visit www.cruiseandtraveluniversity.com.

Mary Brutscher is a travel industry veteran.