Cruise Planners (CP) will post more than a billion dollars in travel sales in 2024 for the second year in a row. In addition, this home-based travel network—the largest in the U.S.—saw a 16 percent increase in client vacation departures this year, coming on the heels of a 44 percent jump in 2023 departures. Cruise Planners’ top executives shared those stellar results with more than 900 CP travel advisors and franchise owners attending Tuesday’s kick-off session for "CP World: You’re a Star,” the group’s annual convention in Fort Lauderdale.
Contributing to those stellar results were such factors as new technology tools, new marketing initiatives, additional training, a cultural willingness to try new things, additional support services, a strong sense of community and a growing and diverse agency network. Most of all, “we truly believe it’s because of our culture and spirit,” stressed Michelle Fee, founder and CEO, Cruise Planners.
In its press release, Cruise Planners emphasized that the conference theming emphasizes “how every Cruise Planners travel advisor is a shining star with limitless potential.” Many advisors attending the Tuesday programming dressed in signature green coloring for shirts, sweaters, hats or even shoes. Projecting an energetic, “can do” attitude, they also cheered at points throughout at the opening session, a program filled with touches of humor and fun.
New Tools and CP Enhancements
There were also more than 20 significant announcements of what Cruise Planners is introducing this year and in 2025 to support its franchise owners. “Our most exciting announcement is the launch of our ASK MAXX AI tool,” says Fee. This ASK MAXX AI Personal Assistant is an AI powered chatbot that builds on CP’s 2023 AI tool, Maxx Intelligence.
“This cutting-edge technology has excited our advisors as it dramatically reduces their research time to just mere seconds, making their work faster and more efficient than ever before," she emphasizes. For example, unlike Toby AI or Chat GBT, the ASK MAXX AI Personal Assistant is trained to analyze unique data within Cruise Planners’ proprietary systems, not just publicly available information found online. So, the new ASK MAXX AI Personal Assistant can retrieve details on partners, destinations, sailings and more. What once took several steps can now be found online in seconds.
In Cruise Planners fashion, MAXX was introduced over the past year to advisors and clients as a cute Boston Terrier image. So, not surprisingly, the latest enhancement was introduced in a fun way with a large MAXX "marching" energetically into the ballroom to the music of "Who Let the Dogs Out."
Other CP Support Initiatives
Cruise Planners also announced 20-plus new initiatives designed to help advisors become more efficient and provide exceptional service to clients. Here are a few of these announcements:
Vax Integration: Advisors can now easily retrieve VAX VacationAccess bookings directly into CP Maxx, Cruise Planners proprietary booking and CRM system. This feature eliminates the need for manual data entry, saving time and effort. Once the booking is retrieved, advisors can easily manage and update it within CP Maxx.
Hotel Tool Enhancements: Cruise Planners is introducing a new feature called Hotel Sheets for 2025, complementing its existing Hotel Comparisons tool. Hotel Sheets enables travel advisors to select specific rooms and rates from over 2 million properties worldwide, providing clients with tailored options. This tool uses live pricing and markup capabilities—ensuring that clients see the most current rates for their chosen room categories.
Additional CP Maxx Enhancements: More new features include Maxx Snippets, the ability to save blocks of text that are used frequently. It provides for easier access. Maxx Shortcuts also allows advisors to bookmark favorite tools and reports within CP Maxx, personalizing the advisor’s CP Maxx experience for greater efficiency.
CP Maxx Mobile Enhancements: Maxx Intelligence, an AI tool powered by ChatGPT launched in 2023, is now available in the CP Maxx mobile app. It allows advisors to access ChatGPT 4.0 from within their mobile device and from anywhere. Advisors can also easily upload videos from iOS or Android devices to the CP Maxx Video Library; that streamlines the process and enables quick sharing in emails or marketing materials.
This Week’s Conference
On Tuesday, the advisors also immersed themselves in training and update sessions from such suppliers as American Airlines, Princess Cruises, Viking, Virgin Voyages and many others. Several advisors told us those sessions helped them focus more on what’s ahead—and what could draw even more business.
One factoid is clear. “Travel is booming…still,” Theresa Scalzitti, CP’s chief operations officer, told advisors attending the opening general session. She and others, including Brian Shultz, chief information officer, and Scott Koepf, chief strategy officer, shared trends, tactics, upcoming plans, details on the new technology and marketing tools and more.
Scalzitti also said that strong consumer demand has driven cruise lines to build new ships, providing great opportunity for building greater sales. While most CP advisors sell a significant number of cruises, officials have also said over the past year or so that land sales are also on the rise. At times, that’s coming from new advisors.
For instance, on Tuesday, Travel Agent met advisor Lynnita Johnson of Fort Pierce, FL, at the convention. She purchased her Cruise Planners franchise agency in 2023, initially focused on training and is now attending her second annual convention to “gear up” for more business. But of the vacations she’s sold thus far, she tells us that the majority have been domestic or international land travel; less than 10 percent of her initial bookings have been cruises.
But whether by land or sea, more Americans see travel as an essential element of their lives. Cruise Planners' advisors learned Tuesday that 10 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) is now travel-focused. So, “one of every 10 dollars is spent on travel,” emphasized Fee.
As the week progresses, the Cruise Planner convention attendees can look forward to these highlights: a cruise line executive panel of senior sales executives from eight major cruise lines; top producer panels; a social media presentation with an industry expert; networking opportunities; additional educational break-out sessions; and more.
Cruise Planners' October 8-11 convention on land will be followed by a three-night inaugural sailing to the Bahamas on Sun Princess from Port Everglades on October 11-14. Currently, that ship is being kept at sea for a few days longer due to the approach of Hurricane Milton, but advisors expect to board on Friday.
For more information on Cruise Planners, visit www.cruiseplanners.com.
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