Become a Home Based Travel Agent

I started out in the supplier side of the business as an Area Manager with North West Airlines. From there I worked with various small cruise lines before becoming a Consultant with Anchors Away Cruises and Tours, a brick and mortar agency based in Clearwater, Florida. Eventually, I purchased the agency in 1995 and since then it’s grown it from $1 million in sales in 1996 to two locations producing over $20 million in 2009.

What made you choose to become Expedia CruiseShipCenters?

Anchors Away had always been a very strong direct mail marketing company, but we struggled with the online side of the business. We tried for several years to develop a web presence, but we could never get where we wanted to go without incurring a significant cost. Our traditional marketing methods like newspaper and radio ads just weren’t having the same impact that they used to so we knew we had to make a change if we wanted to continue growing.

I decided to call up an old friend of mine, Ines Turus, who had recently transitioned her agency, Cruises International, to the Expedia CruiseShipCenters brand. She was enthusiastic about her decision so I decided to look further into it and soon discovered that Expedia CruiseShipCenters’ package can’t be beat. Nobody else offers the combination of support and programs that they do. You could pay thousands of dollars to get into the business and still not match up -there’s nothing else like it.

We had 35 agents working for us when we became Expedia CruiseShipCenters and they are excited about the change. One of the things that certainly attracted us was the power of the Expedia® brand. I can’t imagine how many millions of dollars we would have had to spend to develop the presence that Expedia has in the marketplace. My agents really enjoy the fact that they can now say “I work with Expedia” and people who aren’t even travelers will recognize it.

How does the CruiseDesk® technology compare to what you were using before?

When we started to show our agents CruiseDesk and how it pulls together their GDS, marketing and customer relationship management into one system, they were really enthusiastic. Now, when they put prospects into their 7SEAS® Club, Expedia CruiseShipCenters’ permission email marketing takes over from there. CruiseDesk manages the customer relationship for them, without sacrificing any of the personalized service. All of the destination specific newsletters that go out are personalized to the customer with the agent’s name, photo and contact information. The research shows that once you’ve established a relationship with a person, they are going to feel more comfortable and be more willing to book their travel with you – CruiseDesk does just that.

What kinds of training and support does Expedia CruiseShipCenters provide for agents?

What Expedia CruiseShipCenters provides is a map for getting from where you are now to where you want to be. We have a training program for new and experienced agents that includes videos, weekly webinars and everything agents need to get from 0 to 60. It’s not just industry training, it’s showing someone how to develop their own business that they can do part-time on their own, to the degree that they want to. Whether your goal is to make a few hundred dollars a month or to sell two million dollars in travel next year, Expedia CruiseShipCenters has the tools and support to get you there.

I would say that the industry has a bright future. As we go on, there will be more and more ships with activities and amenities that are exciting to market. They talk about new cruise ships on The Today Show now so people who had never thought about cruising are being exposed to it. We had ice rinks before, but now we’ve got outdoor movie theatres and Blue Man Group! The objections that may have stopped people from cruising before are no longer relevant. You can dine any time you want at any kind of restaurant you want to. The industry is vibrant, exciting and of course, the demographic trends are shifting in our favor as well. We’re having one of the best year’s we’ve ever had so the future to me looks good.

The Corporate Support team at Expedia CruiseShipCenters is full of wonderful, responsive people. I’ve been involved with several corporations at a high level and I don’t know of any of them that have as many good quality people who know what they’re doing, are excited about what they do, and are so pleasant to work with. If you need to make a change or modify something, they’ll take a hard look at it and if they can do it, it gets done. That’s an exciting thing to see in a company framework where you rely on other people to do things for you.

Learn more about becoming an Expedia® CruiseShipCenters Mobile Agent™ and see CruiseDesk in action during our next informative webinar. Click here to RSVP now.

Joanie Ogg CTC MCC
Joanie Ogg Marketing Group
Editor

Joanie Ogg is a thirty-five year veteran of the travel industry and has been involved with the independent contractor evolution since 1988. She is the principal of Joanie Ogg Marketing Group, which specializes in consulting and speaking on the topic of Home-Based Travel. She also provides marketing and sales for wide variety of products under the umbrella HomeBasedTravelAgent.com.

A demonstrated industry leader, Joanie most recently served as the President of the National Association of Commissioned Travel Agents (NACTA) and TravelSellers. She and her husband Tom acquired NACTA in 1996 and sold it to The American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA) in 2000. Joanie’s tenure in the travel industry includes owning and operating one of the first successful host agency models. She has owned and operated several storefront travel agencies (both commercial and leisure), as well as a Hawaii wholesale tour company.

Her decades of success have garnered her numerous accolades over the years. Her accomplishments have been recognized by receipt of two Lifetime Achievement Awards from major trade groups, being named as one of the “100 Most Powerful Women in Travel” by Travel Agent magazine on several occasions, voted as “Travel Agent of the Year” by the readers of Travel Trade magazine, and has been recognized by many other industry organizations throughout her tenure in the industry. In 2008 Joanie Ogg was inducted into the CLIA Hall of Fame, an honor held by some of the most influential executives in the travel industry.

Joanie is a Master Cruise Counselor (MCC) and a Certified Travel Counselor (CTC). Joanie has co-authored two popular travel industry books for cruise specialists and home-based travel agents and has authored hundreds of travel trade articles. She has inspired tens of thousands of travel agents attending her presentations at trade events, cruise seminars, international trade gatherings and numerous local educational venues throughout the United States. With a time-honored background and forward-looking vision, she is often featured as a speaker at many of the travel industry’s major conferences and events. Joanie’s speaking talents are widely sought as a travel industry emcee by the most recognized travel organizations. She has emceed such events as Cruise-A-Thons, ASTA’s CruiseFest, The Trade Show, The Travel Institute Forum and all of NACTA’s National and International Conferences.


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