CLIA’s New Membership Structure Focuses on Individual Agents

For the first time in its 40 years as an association, CLIA is overhauling its membership structure to focus on benefits for the travel agency community.

Following 18 months of collaboration with cruise line and travel agency partners, the association is restructuring its membership according to three tiers based on agency size.

Agents will be required to sign up individually in order to receive certification and new benefits from CLIA’s 25 member cruise lines.

“CLIA will be 40 years old soon,” Christine Duffy, president and CEO of CLIA, told Travel Market Report. “The whole model was based on a storefront model.

“We are moving from an agency model to focusing on the individual agents,” said Duffy. “CLIA has 12,000 member agencies but we really want individual agents to join as individual agents.”

About 50,000 individual agents so far have been signed on by their consortium, which means CLIA’s changes will already affect a wide swath of North American agents.

The new CLIA
The new membership structure debuts today while the new benefits will be available beginning Jan. 1.

The core change: Agents will have to be registered individually with CLIA to receive CLIA booking credentials that make them eligible to receive membership benefits.

Agents must earn $5,000 or more per year in cruise commissions to become a member, although that total is self-reported by agencies.

Tier membership
Membership benefits will be based on a tier system ranging from silver to gold and platinum.

Silver membership, for agencies with one to 24 agents, will receive all core benefits along with one discounted individual agent membership and up to 23 agent memberships, for $339 per year. All agents will not receive individual CLIA numbers with this membership.

Premium gold membership, priced at $49 for up to 99 agents, will be available to agencies of 25 to 99 agents strong. This tier will also include preferential pricing for Cruise3Sixty along with an invitation to the annual premium member summer.

Platinum diamond membership, for agencies with more than 100 agents, will include $49 memberships for agents along with unlimited access to CLIA’s cruise 101 training as well as other perks.

Cruise line collaboration
CLIA began laying the groundwork for the changes 18 months ago. It found willing partners in its member cruise lines.

“The cruise lines want to be able to elevate the profession for those who are going to take advantage of their training,” said Duffy. “Cruise lines will know they are getting a booking from a CLIA member agent.”

There will be a form in cruise lines’ booking engines for agents to designate their CLIA number so the lines will know that agent is a CLIA member. That means the agent’s client will receive the perks associated with the agent’s CLIA membership.

That explains the significance of each CLIA member now being required to have an ID number as well as the provision for the $5,000 commission eligibility cut-off for small agents.

“This is not for hobbyists,” said Duffy.

Consortia onboard
CLIA’s conversations with consortia and other agency groups followed discussions with its cruise line members.

Among CLIA’s initial platinum members are Avoya Travel, Cruise Planners, CruiseOne, Cruises Inc., Ensemble, Nexion, Montrose Travel, Virtuoso, and Vacation.com.

Part of the motivation for the changes was the steep rise in home-based agents over the last decade, according to Duffy.

“The cruise line needs were actually very consistent with the needs of hosts,” said Duffy. “Everyone wants a better agent with the tools to sell more cruises.”

All told, more than 50,000 agents have already signed on to become certified CLIA members due to their affiliation with a consortium.

While agents will have access to training from member lines and CLIA itself, they won’t be required to complete certain training sessions in order to earn certification.

“There wasn’t the need for individual agents to join CLIA before,” said Duffy. “We want individual agents to become certified, but we’re not going to use the stick to make them take advantage of our training.”

A long rollout
CLIA will begin rolling out its new structure next year. However, it has allotted three years for all the changes it envisions to unfold.

“The first phase is going to be critical, with a focus on the benefits 25 cruise line members have put forward to attract agents,” said Duffy.

These benefits will include more than $5,000 in value ranging from increased commission from some lines to client perks from others. Agents can find more information online.

“It is more affordable in terms of [paying dues], but it’s also worth about $3,600 in hard value along with the soft benefits like reduced fam pricing,” said Duffy.

Looking ahead
A second phase will include revamping online training resources. These are set to be announced at next year’s Cruise3sixty conference.

CLIA wants to leverage the power of all their members by building a more personal, communal relationship with members.

And it hopes this will extend to its lobbying efforts on Capitol Hill.