Cruise Planners Golden Era Continues with Travel Weekly’s Magellan Awards
Cruise Planners, an American Express Travel Representative, adds another seven gold and a silver Magellan to its growing list of awards and accolades. With continued focus on innovation and marketing to best serve the largest home-based travel agent franchise network, Cruise Planners remains the leader in pushing boundaries and charting the course within the travel industry.
“With inspiration rooting from our passionate travel advisors, the Home Office Team strives to forge new ground in innovation and marketing solutions helping travel advisors plan and sell memorable vacations,” said Vicky Garcia, COO, and co-owner of Cruise Planners. “These distinguished awards aim the spotlight on our internal Marketing and Technology teams who constantly put our travel advisors first.”
Cruise Planners MarTech Magellan Awards from Travel Weekly include:
Gold Awards:
- Marketing
o Direct Mail: “Enclaves of Elegance” direct mail featuring premium travel including immersive experiences and itineraries
o Direct Mail: “Days & Nights in Dreamy Places,” highlighting river cruise itineraries and experiences along the Danube, Rhine, Douro, Mekong, Mississippi and Christmas Markets
o Direct Mail: “A Toast to Travel” Winter/Spring 2019 Travel Planner Magazine. Celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2019, this magazine acknowledged the experience, knowledge, savings, and service that Cruise Planners travel advisors deliver every day, while also toasting to travel itself, with exclusive offers on cruises, resorts and tour companies, and exciting extras like bonus amenities, room upgrades, and added perks
o Advertising/Marketing Campaign: “Supercharge Your Family Vacation,” print and digital campaign promoting family travel and eye-catching punch as it highlighted a variety of land and sea travel ideas, rich offers and family-friendly features
o Advertising/Marketing Campaign: “Seas the Day,” with direct mail, social media and website elements featuring inspiring travel imagery and itineraries in Australia/New Zealand, Caribbean, Alaska, Europe and Hawaii, plus a section for river cruising and new ships
o Advertising/Marketing Campaign: “BEYOND – Travel to the Next Level,” targeted the luxury and not-yet-luxury traveler with cruises and tours featuring experiences that went beyond the ordinary
- Technology Innovation
o CP Marketing Hub™: A new lead and goal management tool allowing Cruise Planners travel advisors to take a strategic approach to marketing, setting goals, better tracking their sales, ROI and identifying trends in an easy-to-use dashboard tool
Silver Award:
- Advertising/Marketing
o What’s Your Travel Style? A new platform capturing consumer travel preferences in a fun way, and making it easy for Cruise Planners travel advisors to curate those preferences and market-relevant travel products/ideas
What is MarTech?
MarTech – the fusion of marketing and technology business tools designed to grow Cruise Planners travel advisors’ sales. MarTech makes marketing efforts more effective using time-saving, intuitive technology while attaining high levels of customer service and human connection. Recently, Cruise Planners debuted modernized customizable travel advisor websites featuring insightful client tools and highlighting a mix of trending and popular destinations and off-the-beaten-path ideas.
How does MarTech benefit travel advisors?
Cruise Planners technology and marketing go hand-in-hand. The proprietary tools are aimed at making travel advisors’ marketing efforts more targeted, automated and perceptive. The results are not only highly targeted and efficient marketing, but also highly effective. The awarded CP Marketing Hub™ is an online tool allowing travel advisors the ability to track marketing efforts all in one place. The tool also helps plan and forecast marketing for the upcoming year and empowers advisors to work closely with their Business Development coach to set several types of business goals.
“Cruise Planners’ foundation lies in its marketing efforts,” Garcia said. “When we combine turn-key marketing with modern, innovative technology, our travel advisors prosper. It’s a key reason franchise seekers turn to us when searching for a travel franchise opportunity.”
Cruise Planners travel advisors and Home Office Team will be gathering for its annual Convention in December 2019 in South Florida where advisors will receive updates on the latest MarTech advancements as well as hands-on training, industry speakers, and much more.
