Agents to Norwegian: Good Move, We Hope It’s Real
by Dori SalzmanTravel sellers and agency group executives are applauding Norwegian Cruise Line’s recent vow to avoid poaching agency clients in its direct sales efforts. But they’ve been burned by cruise lines before, agents said, so they’re waiting to see the “real” results of Norwegian’s commitment.
Norwegian made the commitment last week at CLIA’s cruise3sixty conference, where it introduced a company-wide Partners First initiative.
Travel agents and executives told Travel Market Report that they were overwhelmingly pleased with Norwegian’s new agent-friendly program, which includes planned investments in booking and marketing support tools and employee training. (See “Norwegian: We Won’t Steal Your Clients Anymore,” Travel Market Report, April 18, 2011.)
But agents expressed caution as well.
‘I want to sell Norwegian’
“Actions speak louder than words,” said Marvin Matteson, owner of K&M Travel in Zephyrhills, Fla. “We’ll wait and see if my clients will still be bombarded.”
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Matteson, who does not currently sell Norwegian, told Travel Market Report that he hopes the Partners First commitment is real. “I really want to sell Norwegian. They have two ships from 45 minutes to two hours [away] from me. A nice long talk with the new rep might answer some questions.”
Becky Piper, owner of a CruiseOne franchise in Strongsville, Ohio, is also curious to see what the “real” results of Norwegian’s re-commitment to travel agents will be.
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“With the way the agency community is feeling right now, that we’re getting beat, battered and hammered down by direct to cruise line bookings, I think it’s a good thing that NCL is making a commitment on that.”
Will there be consequences?
Piper said she still wants to know what the consequences will be if a Norwegian salesperson does sell direct to an agency client.
“When they say there will be sanctions, that means nothing to me. If I’m the agent this happened to, I want to know what I should expect. Is it they give me the commission for that cabin? Is it the person gets fired or put on watch? What’s the path this takes?”
Problem fixed?
Norwegian has admitted that some agency clients were accidentally moved to its direct business department. The line said that once the error was discovered, it quickly remedied the situation.
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This heartened Michelle Fee, CEO and co-founder of Cruise Planners/American Express. “We felt that Norwegian immediately jumped on it and fixed it. We haven’t heard any backlash since then,” she told Travel Market Report.
“We understand that cruise lines need to go direct; we don’t like it, but we do understand that ‘it’s business.’
“However, there is a fine line,” Fee added. “We as agents go out to our local communities and find new cruisers; we don’t want to lose them to direct sales. As long as they are committed to putting travel partners first, it can be a win-win situation for both sides.”
Resounding applause
Fee, Piper, and others praised Norwegian for its Partners First program.
“Cruise Planners was excited to hear that Norwegian Cruise Line has announced a new corporate culture, putting travel partner’s first,” Fee said.
Denis Lim, president of Vancouver-based CruiseExperts Travel, said he was delighted. “As many major cruise lines are attempting to seek direct business by bypassing their traditional travel agent partners, NCL should be applauded.”
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Brad Anderson, co-president of Avoya Travel / America’s Vacation Center, said the Partners First initiatives represent “exciting steps forward for Norwegian Cruise Line with travel professionals.”
“As travel agencies begin to see, and not just hear, that Norwegian Cruise Line is protecting agency clients, their trust and support of the cruise line’s brand will strengthen,” Anderson added.
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Dwain Wall, senior vice president and general manager of CruiseOne and Cruises Inc., had this to say: “It is exciting to see the proactive initiatives they are implementing to take their relationship with the travel agent community to the next level.”
Piper said she’s especially pleased with the fact the line’s new approach to agent relations is being put on paper. “Then if someone has an issue, you can say right away, ‘Here is where you stated this or that would not happen.”
Improvements already
Piper and Lim said Norwegian already has succeeded in its mission to be easy to work with. “In the last few years they have come a really long way in working with travel agents and cleaning stuff up to make it easier to do business with,” Piper said.
“They do listen to the travel agent community. I have never felt that I’m talking to them and they’re just like, ‘Fine, thank you’ and then do what they want.”
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Lim said his 30 cruise experts had noticed that Norwegian has become “very easy” to work with, despite having once been “infamously difficult to work with from a travel agent standpoint.”
“We have noticed that NCL has vastly improved their reservations teams, their online reservations system and their back office support,” Lim said.
