Oceania Insiders University Designed to Be Faster, Easier to Use

Oceania Cruises’ senior vice president of sales and trade marketing, Brennan Quesnele, didn’t mince words in a recent conversation about the line’s recent revamp of its travel advisor education platform.

The old Oceania Cruises University, he told TMR, wasn’t engaging, he said comparing it to a run-on sentence that required too much scrolling.

“The user experience wasn’t where we needed it to be for today,” he said, adding that Oceania truly believes that “education is a core fundamental to our advisors’ success.”

To that end, the new program – Oceania Insiders University – is designed to be faster and easier to complete, while, at the same time, robust enough to give advisors the confidence to tell the Oceania story.

The program, which consists of three levels, can be completed in 45 minutes if done all at once. More importantly, it can be consumed in smaller pieces for those who can’t dedicate that much time all at once. Instead, advisors can take a five- to seven-minute break and learn just one piece of the Oceania story at time, slowly layering on the knowledge until they’ve reached expert status.

“It’s self-guided and set up in a way that advisors aren’t daunted by the task of getting their certification,” Quesnele explained.

Just as importantly, it’s designed so that advisors come out certified both as an expert in the Oceania product but in how to talk about the Oceania product with their clients – what Quesnele refers to as storytelling.

“We’ve enriched our content with videos and with purposeful content that is enabling them to get behind storytelling the brand,” he said.

“This is the recipe to really drive mutual sales,” he added.

One thing that hasn’t changed, within the first year of completing the educational program, advisors can earn $250 in bonus commission for up to three bookings (totaling $750 in bonus commission).

“They’re going to get educated and credentialed and become great storytellers for the brand and be able to close more business and we’re rewarding them as well,” Quesnele said.

Advisors who completed the old Oceania Cruises University are encouraged to complete the new Oceania Insiders University and will qualify for the bonus commission incentive.

Quesnele’s final message to advisors?

“Just start now!”