Celebrity Cruises has changed its sales structure to provide elevated sales and support to national and key accounts, along with enhanced marketing support to trade partners. The new organizational structure will go into effect beginning May 23 and was announced by Dondra Ritzenthaler, SVP of sales, the Americas, and Keith Lane, VP of sales, the Americas, Celebrity Cruises.
Highlights of the new structure include: aligning inside sales with national accounts under the leadership of Jennifer Suarez, associate vice president of national accounts; providing top field accounts with key account manager support; and driving incremental trade business in key cities via the line’s field sales managers, who will also have access to marketing and social media tools, such as Branch Up, for the cruise line’s partners.
Additionally, the line’s regional marketing managers will be refocused on supporting key partner marketing efforts by curating various tools and resources to increase business including leveraging Celebrity’s Marketing Assistance Program 2.0 (MAP), accessible via CruisingPower.com. The program features educational modules, webinars and ideation workshops created to share best and current practices and tools for enhancing marketing efforts to drive incremental business.
Ritzenthaler said, “Our trade partners have always been the most critical part of Celebrity’s distribution model and we remain vitally important to one another’s future success as we re-emerge from the post-shutdown world. This new structure leverages our very talented sales team to uniquely support our national and key accounts with more frequent and consistent points of contact at every stage of the sales process to drive win/win results for everyone.”
“We know that rebuilding marketing plans and programs is a critical need for so many of our trade partners. I’m especially excited about deploying our regional marketing managers to literally swoop in and leverage their expertise to help our travel partners reignite their marketing and attract first to cruise and first to brand,” added Lane.
The new structure follows the line’s recent product introductions including FlexPay, which allows customization of how and when reservation balances are paid; and a new Future Cruise Credit redemption option that applies credits directly to outstanding balances.
For more information, visit www.celebritycruises.com.
Related Stories
Windstar Cancels Asia, Adds Tahiti Sailings
New B2B, Charter-Only River Cruise Company to Set Sail in 2024