Cruise360 Day 3 Recap

It’s the end of our third day in Florida and the first official day of the conference. We kicked things off in grand style today will a full slate of cruise-related activities.

We started the day with an “Industry Issues & Advocacy Update” from CLIA. This session covered cruise issues that can impact industry reputation and legislative policy considerations. It also covered the new legislative environment in Washington, D.C., and its potential impact on CLIA’s legislative priorities.

Here are some relevant points covered during this session:

We recorded a podcast with the presenter, CLIA Sr. VP of Public Affairs Mike McGarry and that episode will be available on our PCT Radio page in the near future.

Next we attended two peer to peer events featuring interaction among the travel agents in attendance. The first was “Learn from the Millennials” and the second was “Learn from the Scholars.” At the first, a younger generation of cruise agents discussed their experiences selling cruise vacations. The idea was to give us a fresh perspective and tactics from the Millennials point of view to help us target and service the younger generations. The panel shared their individual stories and experiences, offered opinions and responded to attendee questions directly. CLIA offers various levels of agent certification and the highest at one time was the ECCS – Elite Cruise Counsellor Scholar. This designation is no longer active but there are a handful of agents who attended this level before it was discontinued and they were the focus of the second panel. Just like the earlier panel, the Scholars shared experiences, answered questions and gave us some valuable tips on how to grow our business.

Lunch today was sponsored by the Norwegian Cruise Holdings brands so we enjoyed a tasty bite to eat while hearing about the latest from their three brands: Norwegian Cruise Line, Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises.

After lunch, it was time for an afternoon of cruise line product updates. These roughly 15-minute updates are designed to get us in front of every cruise line in attendance and help us learn the latest happenings at each of these brands. It also helps us differentiate the various brands we sell so we can recommend the right product based on your needs.

The first session included AmaWaterways, Celestyal Cruises, Crystal Cruises, American Cruise Lines, Pearl Seas Cruises, Ponant and Uniworld Boutique River Cruise Collection.

Session two featured Norwegian Cruise Line, Oceania Cruises, Regent Seven Seas Cruises and MSC Cruises. We’re very excited because we’ll be touring one of the Oceania ships on Monday in Miami.

The final session of the day featured updates from Avalon Waterways, Paul Gauguin Cruises, SeaDream Yacht Club, Silversea Cruises, Windstar Cruises and Tauck River Cruising.

Earlier this evening, we attended the reception for the CLIA Certified Graduates at the Marriott Harbor Beach Resort. CLIA throws this party each year for anyone who has achieved any of the various levels of certification. For the record, those levels are, from lowest to highest:

CCC – Certified Cruise Counsellor
ACC – Accredited Cruise Counsellor
MCC – Master Cruise Counsellor
ECC – Elite Cruise Counsellor
ECCS – Elite Cruise Counsellor Scholar (No longer active)

Many agents also achieved LCS (Luxury Cruise Specialist) before this program was discontinued in the same manner as the ECCS. I (Chris Grum) am proud to be an ECC & LCS, while Scott McAlister is an MCC & LCS and Michelle McAlister is an ACC. Our agents are all very proud to have earned CLIA certification.

PCT’s Scott & Chris with CLIA CEO Cindy D’Aoust

That’s a wrap on day three. Tomorrow we have more cruise line updates, we’ll earn a brand new certification (hopefully) and attend the first of three general sessions. More details tomorrow. Thanks for reading!

Good night from Fort Lauderdale.