Cruise Planners posts strong sales performance despite emergence of omicron

CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. – December 9, 2021 – Despite the emergence of the new Omicron covid-19 variant, our data shows that the pent-up demand for travel supersedes the worries travelers are having with headlines inundating the news. At Cruise Planners, travel bookings have increased across all 3 of our top cruise destinations, including Europe, Alaska and the Caribbean. New bookings increased proving that the pent-up demand for travel is at a fever pitch. This is due in part to Cruise Planners’ strong marketing efforts to drive performance, including publication of our 2022 Vacation Planning Guide and direct mail pieces, which have traditionally correlated with increased sales activity.

“As we continue to monitor the new Omicron variant, we are encouraged that preliminary studies suggest it is less dangerous than the Delta variant and our purchase activity was not negatively impacted by the news,” said Michelle Fee, Founder and CEO of Cruise Planners. “In fact, last week’s purchases were up 35% compared to the same week 2 years ago.” 

While Europe cruises continue to be our top destination and key driver of purchase activity, both Alaska and the Caribbean have seen increased activity in the past two weeks.  Europe cruise purchases are up 26% compared to this same time in 2019, and marks elevated performance in the past 6 weeks, meaning travelers are ready to say ‘bonjour’ to traveling again.

Alaska cruises for 2022 are definitely the hot destination to buy-- our sales have doubled over the same week 2 years ago.  On the other end of the travel destination spectrum, the Caribbean is making a comeback and for the first time in many months, outsold European cruises in the past week. In addition, the demand for luxury travel has been solid and we continue to book world cruises for future sailings. We are also seeing elongated booking windows as 1 in 10 had a departure date of 2023.  Travelers beware, we feel the demand will outpace the supply over the next 2 years.

In addition to a stellar week of sales, Cruise Planners recently received a score of 88 during a survey conducted by Franchise Business Review, which measures a company’s Franchisee Satisfaction Index. Our score ranked 15 points HIGHER than FBR’s industry standard benchmark of 72 In addition, our satisfaction score improved by 7 points since 2020—all this during the toughest year in our industry’s history. 

This just shows how much our efforts in the past year were valued by our network of travel advisors.