Skift Take
Carnival Cruise Line has not always had the best relationship with travel advisors, but it has taken steps to turn that around. Its new campaign to promote the value of advisors should be especially effective.
While the relationship between Carnival Cruise Line and travel advisors has had its contentious moments, the line’s outreach, most recently with its Why Use a Travel Advisor campaign, seems to be turning things around.
“There’s no question that we had a tough relationship with the trade a few years back, that we did some things that were agent-unfriendly,” said Adolfo Perez, Carnival’s senior vice president of sales and trade marketing. “We required certain fare codes to be booked online only. We also increased our commission tiers, so a lot of people saw their commissions reduced.”
Since taking the job in 2015, Perez told Skift that improving relationships with travel advisors has been a high priority, including taking steps to boost earnings for advisors and strengthening communication channels.
“We’ve done things like increasing our commissions and strengthening our co-op program with advisors,” he said. “We also started a commission acceleration program where if you hit certain targets during the first three months, you’re at a higher commission level for the rest of the year.”
Why Use a Travel Advisor
Outreach efforts have also been instituted, including the Why Use a Travel Advisor program, which launched in May. The year-long program includes a series of parties held in Orland
