Cruise lines are rolling out training programmes to keep travel experts abreast of a fast-growing market
Royal Caribbean Cruises
Chin Ying Duan, spokesperson
What training programmes do you have for Asian travel consultants?
Royal Caribbean Cruises’ (RCC) Cruising for Excellence e-learning programme is for travel consultants worldwide, encompassing its three brands – Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Club Cruises. Highlights include interactive, 3D environments that allow users to explore and learn the ships’ key selling points at their own convenience and pace.
Other training methods include in-house seminars for consultants, group product updates and seminars, seminars-at-sea for product exposure and incentives, and ship tours.
How do you tailor your programmes across different Asian markets? What challenges do you face?
Cruising for Excellence has rolled out the e-learning tool in 10 languages, including English, Japanese, Korean and Chinese.
Some local offices have also developed their own training systems, focusing on customised cruise products and additional curriculum such as sales, booking process, operations and market trends.
Wherever possible, RCC arranges for consultants to visit its ships. Otherwise, additional avenues for product familiarisation include seminars-at-sea, familiarisation cruises and Cruising for Excellence’s 3D virtual ship environment.
How do you decide who to train? How many travel consultants in Asia have been trained to date?
In Asia, RCC has trained over 3,000 travel consultants, focusing on those who show an interest in and the potential to sell cruises. Some markets tend to emphasise training for front-liners as they have the most direct contact with customers.
What incentives are there for travel consultants to get trained?
Cruising for Excellence displays a leaderboard of top scorers, thus driving a sense of competition between agencies. The Captain status will be awarded to those who complete modules for one brand and the Admiral status for those who finish all modules.
Trained consultants receive priority access to promotional offers and RCC’s online reservation tool, where they can view the complete inventory at the best available price, create guest bookings and view the support offered for collateral production and advertising.
In some markets, free familiarisation cruises are given to consultants with the top training scores.
How do you measure the effectiveness of training?
Each year, more and more travel consultants become aware of RCC’s brands, sell the brands and produce greater volume in bookings (which is an indication of effectiveness).
Cruising for Excellence also measures proficiency in individual staff at completion of training, judged by the total points earned from the online quiz and by the number of completed modules in each brand, culminating with the Brand Captain Certificate award. – Hannah Koh
Star Cruises
Michael Goh, senior vice president (sales)
What training programmes do you have for Asian travel consultants?
We organise periodic trainings every three to six months to share product updates, market trends and new cruise itineraries. We showcase Star Cruises’ ships in their respective homeports, cruise itineraries, exotic destinations sailed to, and facilities and services onboard, etc.
Apart from sharing in-depth product knowledge, we will impart know-how relating to the promotion of cruise packages, usage of booking reservation system, policies and procedures as well as cruise passage terms and conditions.
How do you tailor your programmes across different Asian markets? What challenges do you face?
During our trainings with respective Asian travel consultants, we reinforce the importance of addressing guests’ needs based on their travel preferences.
For example, we highlight halal F&B restaurants and prayer rooms for Muslim travellers, while for Indians, we share the available Indian vegetarian restaurants and F&B selections to address their special dietary requirements. Shopping and dining are a must for Chinese tourists, so we present the best culinary experiences and retail offerings to them.
How do you decide who to train? How many travel consultants in Asia have been trained to date?
We determine the training requirements based on evolving cruise depaoyment plans and turnover rate among Asian travel consultants. With training taking place every three to six months, each group size can range from 50 to 300 pax, depending on the country and training context.
How do you measure the effectiveness of training?
A good travel consultant should be able to showcase, present and articulate the essence of freestyle cruising as a rejuvenating holiday option to potential cruisers. He/she should be able to entice customers with his/her cruise experiences and convince them to make a booking. – Lee Pei Qi
Princess Cruises
Farriek Tawfik, director of South-east Asia
What training programmes do you have for Asian travel consultants?
Princess Academy was launched in Asia in April. Previously available in North America, the UK, Australia and New Zealand, the on-demand, online training programme for travel consultants has been made available in South-east Asian markets such as Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.
There are four levels of achievement – First Officer, Staff Captain, Captain and Commodore – with five courses for each level. There are a total of 20 courses and a final exam after going through all levels. Dashboards are also available for users to track their progress.
How do you tailor your programmes across different Asian markets? What challenges do you face?
Princess Academy has been rolled out across different South-east Asian markets and is open to all registered travel consultants.
One of the main challenges faced is the language barrier as not all the consultants in the region are proficient in English; we are currently working on this to ensure that the course will be available to more consultants.
We have already launched the Japanese version and are in the process of offering the course in Chinese. We are also exploring offering the course in Bahasa Indonesia and Korean.
How do you decide who to train? How many travel consultants in Asia have been trained to date?
Currently, we have a few hundred Asian travel consultants undergoing training, with 100 having passed the First Officer level. Globally, over 50,000 travel consultants are active participants in the Princess Academy and over one million have taken the course, making it one of the largest online travel universities in the world.
What incentives are there for travel consultants to get trained?
Rewards are offered to both the travel consultant and the agency for each level achieved, including a diploma and officer pin as well as special onboard benefits for the consultant and agency manager when they sail with Princess Cruises.
Travel consultants who reach the level of Commodore will be rewarded with a free Graduation Cruise Course onboard one of our ships for their graduation ceremony. The captain will personally award the pin to the consultants, who will be taken on a tour of the cruise ship, including areas that are not open to public.
How do you measure the effectiveness of training?
The number of consultants who successfully complete and graduate from the courses. These consultants are thoroughly equipped with the knowledge of how to sell Princess Cruises and gain greater confidence when selling Princess Cruises.
Attaining a Princess Academy qualification is also a form of accreditation, as clients who recognise the pin will feel more comfortable with consultants who have undergone training. This helps to improve the overall buying experience. – Xinyi Liang-Pholsena
Costa Cruises
Eunice Lee, marketing director, Pacific-Asia operations
What training programmes do you have for Asian travel consultants?
Costa Cruises arranges training programmes for our trade partners, equipping them with basic information such as Costa products, unique selling points, product positioning, itineraries, ports of call, booking system, general information on embarkation, onboard and disembarkation as well as cruise trends and institutional updates.
How do you tailor your programmes across different Asian markets? What challenges do you face?
Training programmes are tailor-made for travel consultants depending on their existing knowledge and experiences.
Interestingly, the challenge does not lie in the difference in nationalities, but rather the shared limitation of cruise knowledge and experience among travel consultants in Asia. Compared with European markets, most Asian consultants are not very familiar with products offered by international cruise lines, having acquired cruising knowledge from local cruise lines in the past. Some product features of Asian cruise lines are different from cruise holiday products that Costa Cruises provides.
How do you decide who to train? How many travel consultants in Asia have been trained to date?
Costa Cruises always coordinates with the travel agency’s management and decides who to be trained. Normally, training is provided to various departments within travel agencies, ranging from sales and marketing, operations and reservation to product planning and tour leaders.
Training is a continuous effort and we are not able to disclose the number of travel consultants trained to date.
What incentives are there for travel consultants to get trained?
We motivate travel consultants through an innovative and interactive training programme. At times, familiarisation trips are provided as an incentive and to familiarise consultants with our products. A Costa certificate is offered to all consultants who complete our training.
How do you measure the effectiveness of training?
Our training managers always seek feedback from travel consultants in order to continuously increase the effectiveness of training. – Prudence Lui
Crystal Cruises
Marnie Whipple, regional sales manager, Asia-Pacific
What training programmes do you have for Asian travel consultants?
Our local GSAs train travel consultants by visiting their offices and giving verbal product updates and PowerPoint presentations. Approximately once a year, the regional sales manager for Asia-Pacific also hosts a joint product update with the GSAs.
How do you tailor your programmes across different Asian markets? What challenges do you face?
We have an online training programme, Crystal Cruises Academy, available to all travel professionals worldwide, while local GSA offices customise training for their key agent partners. We cannot comment on the different challenges in each market as our GSAs handle the local training.
How do you decide who to train? How many travel consultants in Asia have been trained to date?
Our local GSA partners take into consideration a number of factors, such as identifying luxury sellers, looking into new opportunities and providing ongoing updates for travel partners already selling Crystal Cruises.
What incentives are there for travel consultants to get trained?
Once educated on the six-star luxury experience offered by Crystal Cruises, travel professionals receive encouraging commissions for their sales and, based on revenue, the opportunity to cruise complimentarily.
How do you measure the effectiveness of training?
The most effective way is reviewing sales growth. Based on this we are confident that the training programmes are working well.
At the end of every training programme, we also ask travel professionals in person and follow up via phone calls on what we did well and what we can do to improve. – Prudence Lui
Silversea Cruises
Melvyn Yap, regional director (Asia)
What training programmes do you have for Asian travel consultants?
We have two types of training programmes: a large one where we invite many travel consultants to a function room and in-house where we visit the travel consultant’s office.
For the large one held annually, we invite about 80 travel consultants and put together a half-day programme to give product updates.
As for the in-house programme, it is arranged on an ad-hoc basis for travel consultants who request for an update or refresher.
How do you tailor your programmes across different Asian markets? What challenges do you face?
We try not to change the core programme too much as the cruises and ship products are generally similar. But depending on the company, and it is not country-specific, we may tailor the programme.
For instance, for a company that sells expeditions, we will talk more about expedition cruises and land programmes. We tailor the programme according to the company profile.
How do you decide who to train? How many travel consultants in Asia have been trained to date?
We generally involve our key travel consultants for the annual programme and train about 1,000 pax every year.
What incentives are there for travel consultants to get trained?
They will be able to better promote the product to their clients. Product knowledge is very important to effectively sell a cruise holiday.
How do you measure the effectiveness of training?
When we receive more bookings, as it would reflect greater awareness and interest from the passengers. We do not perform tests to calculate the effectiveness because it is evident from the sales made. – Lee Pei Qi
How can cruise lines improve their training?
“Training must be reinforced periodically as changes in product offerings take place seasonally. Familiarisation trips for front-line staff are absolutely imperative in order to give them greater confidence to sell cruises. Currently, only five per cent of travel (consultants) in India sell cruises.
The market-specific needs of Indian cruise clients, such as their penchant for Indian food, Bollywood-type entertainment and casinos, are addressed by companies like Star Cruises in their training programmes. However, more attention should be paid to shore excursions. Cruise companies must also train (consultants) to address clients’ queries about onboard options that may vary according to age. DVDs with 360-degree views can be effective.”
Arvind Tandon Managing director, Faraway Places, Marketing India
“As cruise travel is still new to us, we hope to better equip our guides with more product knowledge. For instance, we hope cruise lines will share more information on their incentives and MICE offers instead of just focusing on FIT or small group traffic. As cruise ships have large capacity, there is a lot of in-depth information that they can share with us, such as the different types of pillows provided in rooms and characteristics of various fine-dining offerings onboard.”
Lanny Leung CEO, Wing On Travel Hong Kong
“The smaller and lesser-known travel agencies don’t really have big cruise lines proactively reaching out to us as they usually target the popular ones. But in fact, sometimes we can sell even more cruises than (the bigger companies). It will be helpful if the cruise lines reach out to all types of agencies, big and small.
I would really like cruise lines to include us in their on-site cruise ship tours as such visual introductions will be easier for us to sell and market (their products) to my customers.”
Irene Lim Sales representative, i’Smart Leisure Services Singapore
This article was first published in TTG Asia, November 15 – 28, 2013 issue, on page 12. To read more, please view our digital edition or click here to subscribe.
Additional reporting from Lee Pei Qi, Xinyi Liang-Pholsena, Prudence Lui
