Cruise Planners Launches Redesigned Technology

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Cruise Planners/American Express, the largest home-based travel agent franchise network in the cruise industry, unveiled its completely redesigned franchise management system at CLIA’s Cruise3Sixty on Friday, April 3.

“Our vision was to develop a program that is simple to use but creates professional output while cutting costs and time,†said Michelle Fee, Cruise Planners co-founder and CEO. “The result is an exclusive technology that allows our agents to interact with suppliers and clients with expertise and precision.â€

Research — An integrated Web 2.0 extranet provides social networking to more than 700 franchisees across the country for sharing best practices; finding travel products; staying current on destination, cruise and tour information; and connecting with the Cruise Planners Home Office from anywhere in the world, on any platform.

Management — The innovative system allows for real-time booking, invoicing, commission tracking and reporting. In addition, Regisweb, a group management tool exclusive to Cruise Planners, allows agents to create individual pages on their Web sites specific to group bookings that provide group members password-protected platforms to specify preferences, obtain trip updates and enter personal information, which ensures accuracy and phases out the data entry process for agents.

Marketing — Cruise Planners’ Web-based marketing system provides agents with the ability to generate leads and customize their Web sites and materials from templates with search engine optimization built directly into the framework.

Additionally, in an industry first, agents can also design, print and send personalized, professional quality HTML sales flyers, e-cards and other custom direct mail pieces using CPpod, a print-on-demand portal exclusive to Cruise Planners, which has proven to be the most effective and highest utilized tool.

Cruise Planners also has a new, exclusive partnership with MailPound for creating agent-specific e-brochures and other custom-tailored approaches to help attract and maintain clients.

“The new technology supports our goals of providing the best value, customer service and overall experience, and we’ve received nothing but positive feedback since Beta testing began last week,†continued Fee.