Cruise Holidays Kevin Weisner

Kevin Weisner joined Cruise Holidays in 2005, then left to manage the company’s Cruise Deals online-oriented brand in 2010. He returned to Cruise Holidays in June as senior vice president. During the company’s annual conference aboard the Norwegian Breakaway, Weisner talked with cruise editor Tom Stieghorst.

Q: What changes have you made at Cruise Holidays?

A: Some of the changes we’ve brought into the picture in the short time I have been onboard really have been focused on how can we improve the marketing. We have a very good program now, highly targeted, but there were still some opportunities we had not yet leveraged as well as we wanted to. That really comes more on the creative side. We were taking a bit of one-size-fits-all on creative. Now we’re going to take the targeting, i.e., find the most likely purchasers within a particular brand, and then say, “What do they look like? Are they empty-nesters, or are they a family with children?”

Q: Changing the name of CruiseWeb to AgentMate takes it away from the cruise-only emphasis. Are you contemplating a change in the Cruise Holidays name?

A: We are not changing the Cruise Holidays name. CruiseWeb, because of its name, has not been perceived as being very functional for land-based vacations. The name sort of created the perception that it wasn’t good for doing the other things.

The other part of the name change is we’re trying to make it more of a sales-enabling tool, a friend of the agent. The application was originally built to fill a void when Cruise Holidays was founded, which is, they weren’t going on a GDS and without a GDS you had nothing to put a back-office system onto. It started as a way to keep track of the money. Its development for a number of years was about the back office. Over the last three or four years the emphasis has been building back out to the front of the office.

Q: You have a new lead management system. Does it require agents to share the leads they’ve developed with others?

A: Our system helps agents get leads into the system, and not just keep it in their own heads, for the benefit of the agent. In addition, if I’m a franchise owner and I can get my staff to participate and get data into the system earlier, I can also monitor it and see that they’re doing the follow-ups, and frankly provide coaching where needed. Our larger agencies and affiliates are really driving that, those who have dozens and in some cases hundreds of independent contractors that might be contributing to their business.

Q: Have you made any new acquisitions, and are you still looking for master franchise agreements outside the U.S.?

A: We haven’t had anything new. I know there’s interest in more master franchises. Coincidentally, in the last week we’ve had inquiries from Costa Rica and Hong Kong. We’re at the inquiry stage. No discussions have taken place yet. I think we’re open to it, but it’s got to make sense.

Q: We’ve had two years in a row where an event out of agents’ control [the Costa Concordia sinking in 2012, the Carnival Triumph fire in 2013] has made it more difficult to sell cruises. How frustrated are they? Does it make it hard to sell franchises with the word “cruise” in the name?

A: I actually believe it’s put the agent distribution channel in a much better position with the consumer. They have somebody who is absolutely the advocate for them, who is going to work tirelessly to be sure they’re safe and secure. We never want to say these unfortunate events are a positive, but it did show the value the distribution channel has always provided for the consumer.

Follow Tom Stieghorst on Twitter @tstravelweekly.