Carnival Cruise Line
OVERVIEW
Carnival Cruise Line, which bills itself as ‘The World’s Most Popular Cruise Line,’ is a leader in contemporary cruising and operates 23 ships designed to provide fun and memorable vacation experiences at great value. Carnival successfully caters to all ages, demographics and walks of life.
Founded in 1972, Carnival is one of the most recognizable brands in the cruise industry. The line identifies its target customers as those who like to "Choose Fun" and live life to the fullest. CCL has broad consumer appeal, attracting families, couples, singles, and seniors and carrying nearly one million children each year.
Carnival’s newest ships are bigger and packed with innovative amenities. The 5,282-passenger Mardi Gras entered service in 2021 sailing from Port Canaveral, Florida as the first cruise ship in North America to be powered by liquefied natural gas (LNG) and the first ever to have a roller coaster at sea.
DESTINATIONS VISITED
Carnival Cruise Line offers cruises generally ranging from three to eight days with almost all of it’s ships departing from 14 easily accessible U.S. homeports. The cruise line is the leading provider of year-round cruises in The Bahamas, the Caribbean and Mexico and also operates seasonal cruises in Canada, New England, Alaska, Hawaii, Bermuda, Europe, Panama Canal, Transatlantic, Transpacific and Asia. In addition, Carnival Cruise Line sails year-round in Australia.
GoCCL.com – THE CARNIVAL CRUISE LINE AGENT PORTAL
In 2019, Carnival launched “GoCCL Navigator,” a redesigned and renamed cruise booking tool for travel advisors, accessed through GoCCL.com. The booking platform’s design is based on extensive input from travel advisors, and the platform was beta-tested by more than 500 “power users” — agents who are the cruise line’s highest-volume bookers.
The site is optimized for mobile devices and streamlined to reduce the number of steps required to perform tasks. Features include: interactive deck plans that make selecting specific staterooms easier; quick-quote functionality that enables advisors to personalize Carnival-branded mails to clients in just a few steps; and easier price comparisons on different stateroom categories. Training on how to use the GoCCL Navigator is available via the Learn and Earn Training Program tab accessible on GoCCL.com.
CARNIVAL CRUISE LINE AGENT TRAINING
Carnival Cruise Line’s Loyalty Rocks: Learn and Earn program provides travel agents with education on everything Carnival Cruise Line, and it rewards agents for completing the courses. It can be accessed through GoCCL.com.
The Carnival Trade Facebook page is the official page of Adolfo Perez, SVP of Global Sales & Trade Marketing, with close to 50,000 followers. The frequently updated page offers lots of information for Carnival-selling advisors.
The Carnival Independent Agent Advisor Team has a Facebook presence here, discussing product and GoCCL training, while sharing sales knowledge, resources and group ideas to help agents grow and become more successful and productive. The team also has a private Facebook group where independent agents can interact with the team, each other, and discuss hot topics and upcoming events. Advisors can apply to join the group here.
AGENT RATES & FAMS
Exclusive travel agent rates are updated frequently at GoCCL.com. Information on fam trips can be found there too, or by contacting your local business development manager for opportunities.
LOCAL AGENT SUPPORT
Carnival Cruise Line works extensively with travel advisors and has a large field support team across Canada and the U.S. You can find the business development manager responsible for your region at GoCCL.com.
AGENT MARKETING TOOLS
GoCCL.com offers travel advisors a full online suite of marketing resources including virtual backgrounds, web banners, flyer templates and ready-print ads.
One of those resources is BizBuilder, which offers a user-friendly creation process for ad flyers. A drop-down menu used in creating collateral will automatically populate up-to-date ship and sail date information based on the destination selected. Flyers can be customized with travel agency logos, contact information and specific call-to-action information for personalized marketing.