11 MAR 2010:  Effective March 1, several of Carnival Cruise Lines' booking functions for agents were migrated online.  Carnival said it has been working to increase agents' level of awareness and engagement with BookCCL.com, the cruise line's web portal for agents.

The ‘online only’ areas include:

•    extending options for group and FIT staterooms

•    requesting booking confirmations

•    requesting group booking reports

•    getting a statement of group request

•    changing dining time

•    requesting a group program fee form.

Joni Rein, Carnival’s vice president of worldwide sales, said travel agent partners like the “many advantages (the system)  offers, like convenient access to their client’s reservations on a 24/7 basis>

"It makes sense for us to now migrate a number of basic reservations functions to on-line only so our call-center team can remain available to support travel agents in closing sales and assisting with the more complex service issues."

In a letter to travel agents, Carnival said it has found travel agents’ use of  BookCCL to have grown significantly, “as has your confidence and ability to easily manouvre through."

The cruise line said “challenging economic circumstances that prevailed most of last year forced us to rethink the way we managed every aspect of our business."