Cruise Planners kicks off 2022 convention with exciting announcements and unveiled first-of-its-kind LivePlanner tool in Miami

There’s no place quite like home, and in the case of Cruise Planners, their 2022 annual convention is finally back in South Florida after hosting its previous one in Riviera Maya, Mexico. The convention, taking place Nov. 11-14 at the Intercontinental Hotel in Miami, will host over 700 travel advisors from across the country and include supplier executives from all major cruise lines, tour companies and all-inclusive resorts. Cruise Planners unveiled the theme of their convention, “CP World” at their executive opening session and also made a series of big announcements including financial performance, new proprietary tools and technology, upcoming events and marketing initiatives.

Cruise Planners executives shared a financial overview showing incredible recovery post covid. Land travel, which includes all-inclusive resorts, guided and packaged tours--also continued to be a standout with an 18% increase over 2019. River cruising was also on the rise, with a 21% increase in departures, making it the biggest year ever in this niche market. Overall, Cruise Planners has seen a 28% growth in 2022 compared to 2019, which is welcome news after the past two years of travel being at a relative standstill.

“It’s been a stellar year of growth for Cruise Planners and the energy at convention is electric and palpable,” said Michelle Fee, CEO and founder of Cruise Planners. “You never leave without feeling rejuvenated and empowered and we’re thrilled to share all the innovations we’ve been working on and to celebrate the milestones and hard work of our advisors and Home Office Team.”

Cruise Planners also unveiled new technology tools and applications, including LivePlanner, the first of its kind in the industry and is patent-pending. Announcements include:

• Branded Landing Pages with Destination Pages, Supplier Pages, and more
• Destination Microsites Another enhancement to the agent’s websites will beautiful imagery and detailed information about popular destinations to help inspire travel
• Destination Hub This new addition to CP Maxx (Cruise Planners proprietary CRM system) will allow agents to have destination information at the click of a button. It is being powered by Fodors, the leading destination content provider.
• Amenity Tracker The Amenity Tracker is a tool within CP Maxx that will allow advisors to keep track of all of those perks, amenities and gifts that their clients receive for booking with them. It will allow advisors to easily record the amenities offered such as Onboard Credits, Beverage Packages, Prepaid Gratuities, Resort Credits and more!
• Chat feature for our CARE Support Team Cruise Planners has a support team called the CARE Team. This will give advisors the ability to receive prompt assistance and top service care!
• Navitrip Hotel Booking Engine Giving access to over 100,000 hotels and resorts from all over the world, our new Find a Hotel tool powered by Navitrip, and will allow advisors to adjust their commission and savings for their clients by using a simply toggle bar. It allows them to have complete control.
• Trip Summary 2.0 Trip Summary 2.0 is a major enhancement to our current Trip Summary tool. It is completely integrated within CP Maxx and therefore an advisor can easily create a Trip Summary for their clients with a few clicks of button that includes images, itinerary details and special notes and recommendations.
• LivePlanner LivePlanner is a “first-of-its-kind” tool. It is a live vacation planning and presenting tool. It allows advisors to have a real-time, live consultation session with their clients. Unlike Zoom or other screen sharing tools, LivePlanner gives full control to the advisor to push the content to their client’s screens to show them only what they want to show them.
• LivePlanner Collections LivePlanner Collections will feature destinations, brands or specific ships, resorts or tours. Each collection will be designed together with the supplier partners to make it easy to show your customers exactly what they’re looking for.
• LivePlanner & Trip Summary By combining LivePlanner and Trip Summary, advisors can build a day-by-day sample itinerary for their clients and then utilize LivePlanner to review the itinerary with them and easily provide content and details to help the client visualize the experience proposed.
• 2023 In-Person Events (16 Total):
• 2 Elite Summits
• 3 Tech Days
• 5 Boot Camps
• 3 Sales Academies
• Land Forum
• Luxury Forum
• Annual Convention
• CP Cares and Charitable Giving As part of the CP Cares tradition of giving back each year at the convention, Cruise Planners partnered with the Miami VA Fisher House to raise funds and collect donation items. The Fisher House Foundation builds comfort homes where military & veteran families can stay free of charge, while a loved one is in the hospital. Cruise Planners advisors ad suppliers made donations that included gift cards, household items, kitchen supplies and other non-perishable goods and Cruise Planners will present a check of $10,000 as well. To date, CP Cares has raised over $2 million dollars for charitable causes.

In addition, Cruise Planners honored veterans at their opening session and also dedicated the convention to Vicky Garcia, the company’s late COO and co-owner, who passed away earlier this year after a long illness. Over 650 Cruise Planners advisors sailed on the brand new Norwegian Prima from Nov.14-17 for the inaugural sailing and cruise portion of their convention.