This week: Carnival Cruise Line is celebrating travel advisors in June; Travel Leaders’ Edge conference has been a SNAP for Canadian advisors; TRAVELSAVERS Canada adds new agencies; Direct Travel unveiled a new commission tracking tool; and WestJet Vacations was busy entertaining and educating travel advisors both at home and abroad.
Carnival Cruise Line
Carnival Cruise Lines has unveiled Funnel Faves, a new campaign built around the “core belief that travel advisors are at the heart of great vacations.” As part of a month-long program launch, the line is offering a series of four new, week-long promotions, which include a chance to win a cruise or a Carnival gift card by sharing a personal “Funnel Fave” – an anecdote about and what makes Carnival an excellent choice for clients and a great partner for advisors’ business success – on Wygert’s new Facebook page.
Travel advisors will also have opportunities to win a special lunch from their Carnival BDM, as well as merchandise, including new Funnel Faves t-shirts that promote travel advisors and serve as wearable business cards. In addition, travel advisors will earn twice the reward points on all new bookings entered in Loyalty Rocks! – Carnival’s travel advisor rewards program.
“(Travel advisors) are our best advocates. That’s the philosophy my team and I have championed as we’ve built meaningful partnerships with travel advisors over the years,” says Janet Wygert, Carnival’s Sr. VP of Sales and Trade Marketing. “It’s important to us that our travel advisor partners are supported and celebrated, and that’s our guiding principle with this new program.”
Visit GoCCL.com for more details.
Travel Leaders Network
More than 2,000 travel industry professionals from across the U.S. and Canada are gathering this week at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas for TLN’S annual international conference. The five-day EDGE (Educate, Discover, Gather, Evolve) conference, including a Luxury Forum where travel agents who are luxury specialists have the opportunity to meet one-on-one with luxury suppliers, runs from June 8-12 and features scores of educational workshops and professional development sessions, technology showcases and captivating guest speakers.
One development has been the official launch of air booking capabilities in Canada through the point-and-click tool, SNAP, which had previously been limited to hotel and rental car bookings.
Launched in 2024 and powered by Sabre, SNAP was designed to simplify the booking process for travel advisors seeking a user-friendly alternative to a traditional GDS.
Over the past year, a handpicked beta group of top Canadian advisors collaborated with Travel Leaders Network’s SNAP team to fine-tune the platform’s air booking capabilities for the distinct requirements of selling air travel in Canada.
TRAVELSAVERS Canada
TRAVELSAVERS Canada reports that it is continuing to grow its national footprint and sales with the addition of seven new agencies to date in 2025 contributing $18 million in preferred partner sales. This brings the total number of agencies in the country to 330.
The organization shared the news at its Travel Market conference, held June 4-7 at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress Resort in Orlando.
In 2024, TRAVELSAVERS Canada added 23 agencies with over $52 million in preferred partner sales, alongside more than 225 new independent contractors.
Direct Travel
In a move designed to support and improve its network of 800 travel advisors in Canada and the U.S., Direct Travel has upgraded Direct Tracker, a commission tracking tool that now offers full data download capabilities. Advisors can not only monitor their sales and commission performance in real time but also identify and recover unclaimed commissions.
“All Independent Contractors run their business in their own way – this enhancement gives them full control over their sales and commission data, making it easier to reconcile their financial records,” says Stephen Smith, Direct Travel’s SVP of Strategy & Marketing.
“This enhanced ability to recover unclaimed commissions is a game-changer in our industry,” adds Direct Travel VP Joelle Goldman, adding, “Our goal is to help our advisors to focus more on curating unforgettable experiences and less on administrative tasks.”
WestJet Vacations
Through a series of strategic initiatives aimed at showcasing brand offerings and product updates to its travel advisor community, WestJet Vacations says it is continuing to build its partner relationships through across the country. Recent events included:
- In March, WestJet Vacations partnered with Playa Hotels & Resorts to host more than 40 travel advisors for a Paint and Sip event at LuLu Island Winery in Richmond, BC, where advisors were given an update about what’s new with the tour operator (including a new weekly flight departing every Tuesday from Vancouver) and provided a detailed overview of the Playa Hotels portfolio, notably in Cancun, one of WestJet Vacation’s top-selling destinations.
- WestJet Vacations teamed up with Hotel Xcaret this past April to host a private cooking class at Dirty Apron in Vancouver and educate an exclusive group of invited travel advisors on the value of the partnership between both brands. Advisors in attendance were party to a wine and cocktail reception, followed by a presentation from Hotel Xcaret’s Melissa Fernández, Sales Executive U.S. and Canada, and then an immersive four-hour cooking class under the guidance of Chef Takashi.
- Transat Distribution advisors were recently hosted by WestJet Vacations in Los Cabos and Cabo San Lucas to explore the diverse regions and its various family-friendly and luxury resorts, including Hyatt Zilara Los Cabos, Dreams Los Cabos, Breathless Cabo San Lucas, Sandos Finisterra, Grand Velas and GR Solaris Lighthouse. Highlights including a humpback whale sightings during a sunset cruise along the Sea of Cortez.
- Experiencing firsthand the ease of travel with WestJet Vacations to one of Mexico’s popular destinations, Red Label Vacations travel advisors recently boarded new non-stop WestJet flights from Toronto to Tulum, where they also enjoyed the experience of greater accessibility in-destination from the airport to the properties they visited between Playa Del Carmen and Tulum.
Several networking opportunities were organized for the group, including a WestJet Vacations focus group where critical feedback was gathered from advisors that could help the WestJet Vacations business grow. One experience of note was an agave tasting hosted by the Hilton Tulum team, where a tequila master led the advisors on a journey to uncover and appreciate the spirit’s unique flavours.
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