Testing the Waters with Dori: Do Advisors Share the Blame for the Demise of NCL’s No-NCF Program?

In one of last year’s editions of our Ask an Advisor series, a travel advisor posed the question, what is the responsibility of the travel advisor community to mentor young and new-to-industry advisors?

To start this year off, I have another responsibility-related question.

What is the responsibility of travel advisors to steer business to suppliers that are more supportive of the trade than others? On the flip side of that, what is the responsibility of advisors to ensure they’re matching the right supplier with the right client, regardless of supplier’ policies? And, where is the line between the two?

I ask because, after years of complaining about NCFs, Norwegian Cruise Line made the call to eliminate them, expecting that travel advisors would steer business to them in a basically quid-pro-quo response.

That didn’t happen, and so after just one year, NCL reversed course on the move and will be going back to NCFs, starting April 1.

The move begs many questions, not least of which is, are travel advisors to blame for losing out on what was one of the most trade-friendly business decisions by a major cruise line in a long time?

Conversely, was it unfair for NCL to expect a quid-pro-quo response? Virgin Voyages and Explora Journeys don’t have NCFs. They haven’t had them since day one.

Responses to NCL’s decision to revert back to NCFs from some key agency executives including Alex Sharpe at Signature and Michael Eichhorst from Expedia Group, expressed some level of mea culpa. We should have done better for NCL, both executives essentially said.

Executives also were quick to note that none of the other major cruise lines followed suit, making it harder for NCL to justify its course.

But, of course, they didn’t. When advisors didn’t quickly start steering business away from them and to NCL, they had no reason to.

There are likely myriad of reasons why advisors didn’t push a significant percentage of their business to NCL. Perhaps NCL isn’t a right fit for their clients or they have better relationships with BDMs at another cruise line. Maybe they were simply so busy taking business that they didn’t have time to guide business.

When John Chernesky at NCL first let me know about the decision to go back to NCFs, I was disappointed. First in NCL for reversing course on something that truly was one of the most trade-friendly policies I’ve seen in years. And then in advisors for not taking advantage of the opportunity offered to them to reward a supplier for doing the right thing.

But, is it the “right thing” if you’re doing it for personal reward?

I’m not a black and white kind of person. Life is more gray than anything. When it comes to business, altruism generally doesn’t exist. There has to be a financial incentive for doing the “right thing.” You won’t find many companies making charitable donations or giving away proceeds without shouting it out to the world – in order to drive people to want to do business with them. The thought there is people like to support companies that support causes they believe in.

Essentially, NCL was doing the same thing. Only the advisor community didn’t support them back.

So, my question to you is, did advisors have a responsibility to do so?

Let me know what you think at dsaltzman@travelmarketreport.com.