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Royal Caribbean Cruises has announced Espresso, a completely new reservation system designed for travel agents selling Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, Pullmantur, Azamara Club Cruises and CDF Croisieres de France.
Launching in March 2015, Espresso will deliver a faster, powerful and intuitive reservation system to help the cruise company’s travel agent partners sell more cruises, earn more commission, and grow their businesses.
“Royal Caribbean’s relationship with travel agents has always been our number one priority and this is another demonstration of our commitment to making our brands the easiest in the industry to do business with,” said Vicki Freed, senior vice president of sales and trade support and service for Royal Caribbean International.
“These new tools deliver an easier and more intuitive booking experience for our valued travel partners. We’re excited to see how this smarter, more dynamic platform will enhance their business results with our brands.”
Espresso provides side-by-side comparison views of selected itineraries to help travel agents identify the best possible cruise for their clients.
Once submitted, the new reservation system’s powerful search engine zeroes-in on the best available price and applicable promotional offers to deliver the best vacation options for travel agents to present to their clients.
What is truly revolutionary about the new Espresso is the reservation system’s ability to provide a side-by-side view of groups and individual inventory at point of sale, or Single View.
Travel agents can use Single View to compare individual pricing against their reserved group space to determine the best value and price for their clients.
No longer will travel agents need to switch screens between individual and group bookings to query the best deal, freeing up time that could be better used to service their clients and sell more cruises.
The new predictive search function can help travel agents find an existing reservation from a single identifier, saving valuable time when servicing a client’s booking.
Espresso also can identify past guests and display a customer’s history, such as recent promotions sent to them, last cruise taken, destination and accommodation preferences, and any other interests that has been shared, and automatically populates their information and preferences when making a new reservation .
Furthermore, Espresso is optimised for tablet devices, another industry first, providing travel agents the freedom to engage their clients wherever they are, at their desks or on-the-go at the coffee shop.
Interactive deck plans highlight the best available staterooms and filtered selections, like available connecting rooms, closest to and accessible staterooms, a new interactive deck plan allows the agent to view the best available staterooms with the ability to select one or multiple staterooms by simply clicking on them. Stateroom details such as photos and layout are all available in the same place.
