Travel advisors were disappointed but not surprised that Norwegian
Cruise Line will reinstate non-commissionable fares (NCFs) in 2024 after
rolling it out a year ago.
2023 was a strong year for cruise bookings, which made it challenging
to show that NCL's programme to incentivise more bookings was paying
off, they said.
"With everyone doing well, we likely didn't have the same opportunity
to show them disproportionate love. Advisors were simply trying to keep
up," said Alex Sharpe, president of Signature Travel Network.
Travel agencies have been so busy this year that agents have been
more focused on "order-taking" rather than "order-making" to sell
particular products, said Matthew Eichorst, president of Expedia
Cruises.
"The perfect storm is we've all been so busy responding to the
business. The business came back so strongly that agents probably aren't
proactive out there at all," he said. "It was probably bad timing."
Anthony Hamawy, president of Cruise.com , said the programme's staying power faded when NCL's competitors didn't follow its lead.
"The day they started it, we knew it was only a matter of when they
were going to stop it," said Hamawy. "It only took probably a week to
figure out that no other cruise line was going to follow. You need
everyone buying in to go that way."
NCL senior vice president of sales John Chernesky told top advisors
gathered in New York for its President's Club meeting on 14 December the
the line would discontinue its programme to pay commission on the full
cruise fare. The line will reinstate NCFs after 31 March, enabling
agents to continue making larger commissions until the presumed end of
Wave season.
For the last year, the programme rewarded travel advisors with
commissions on the full cruise fare when booking sailings at least 120
days in advance. To become eligible, advisors had to earn NCL's approval
for their marketing plan. About 2,500 agencies were admitted to the
programme.
While the initiative served the purpose of generating more agency
bookings and helping put money in the pockets of travel advisors as they
were recovering from the pandemic, the line decided to phase out the
programme and repurpose the funds used to support it toward marketing or
relationships with agencies, said Chernesky.
"It was not generating the interest or the focus on NCL that we would have liked, ultimately," he said.
Source: Travel Weekly