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Perhaps the biggest change in the
works is at MSC Cruises, which will
officially launch its first certification
program for MSC Specialists for the
new year.
“We’re developing a brand new
program that will launch in January,
just in time for WAVE, which as you
know is the busiest time for booking
cruises, and a great time for travel
agents to get immersed and close
those bookings,” says executive VP
KenMuskat. “We’ve always depended
on doing webinars and road shows
and seminars at sea and ship visits
to educate the trade, but having an
online, on-demand program that
agents can do whenever they want
will help us take it to the next level.”
Like every good training program,
MSC’s new program will be “very
quick and easy, with interactive videos
and a few quiz questions to reinforce
what they’ve learned,” Muskat said.
Upon completion of the various
modules, travel agents will be eligible
for a variety of rewards, though the
details have not yet been set, he said.
At the high end of the spectrum,
Norwegian’s award-winning and
well-established NCL University,
begun in 2011, also will be tweaking
its training offering — which has seen
a whopping 14% increase in usage so
Training Courses series launched
in July 2016, and so far more than
1,000 Travel professionals have
taken its Alaska and the Yukon:
The Great Land = Great Sales
for You, course, the company
said. The courses, developed in
collaboration with industry training
expert Dr. Marc Mancini, include a
combination of video instruction,
reading and interaction, and include
downloadable marketing tools.
HAL announced in November
that it is adding a “Panama Canal
and More’ course, which takes just
15 to 20 minutes to complete. It
includes information about HAL’s
Panama Canal cruise and tips on how
to uncover the motives of people
who take a Panama Canal cruise, to
determine which clients are most
likely to buy one.
far this year — for 2017.
It will retain its three-tiered format
of core classes, electives and graduate
courses, said VP of key accounts Alex
Pinelo — but also will “try to simplify
the program, add new content,
make the courses more succinct and
requiring less time for completion, so
it will be easier to navigate. And we’ll
add some new reference materials
and some new and exciting features
that will roll out throughout 2017.”
The core classes cover the basics;
the electives are about the various
destinations to which Norwegian
sails, the ships, The Haven and
the suites, accessibility, loyalty
programs, meetings and incentives,
and weddings and honeymoons.
Graduate courses are aimed more
at helping agents sell — from social
networking skills to marketing. “We
want to support our travel partners,
to make them better educated on the
various components of the industry,
to make then better producers for our
brand,” Pinelo said.
Rewards are generous; specialist
program graduates who also book
three qualifying cruises get a free
cruise for two.
Holland America Line also is
adding new courses to its program
for 2017. Its HAL Academy Specialist
Rewards are generous;
specialist program
graduates who also book
three qualifying cruises
get a free cruise for two.
How do you learn how to sell a complicated, complex product that has hundreds of options, prices,
ships, destinations and room classes? Any travel professional will tell you, it’s not easy. That explains
why the cruise lines have put so much time and thought into their training programs — and why they
are still tweaking them as the calendar turns to 2017.
Learning
To Sell Cruises:
Training Programs Step Up For 2017
By Cheryl Rosen
