Cruisen, a new cruise-planning platform for travel advisors, will makes its debut at CruiseWorld in Fort Lauderdale next month, offering agents a place where they can communicate and collaborate with clients in real time.
The free tool assists in managing trips, suggesting cruises and collaboration, although advisors will need to leave the platform to make the actual booking. A paid option, Cruisen Enterprise, is also available for larger agencies, and that version does offer booking capabilities.
Cruisen was developed by entrepreneur Reid Williams. His first startup was expense and travel management solution TravelBank, which was founded in 2015 and eventually acquired by U.S. Bancorp in 2021. Williams stayed on with U.S. Bancorp after the acquisition for a few years until stepping away in July.
Williams is a lover of cruises but said he found the booking process clunky.
"I always try to think about how I can use technology to change or do something a little bit different or better," Williams said.
Cruisen was born as a "passion project" about six months ago, Williams said. He originally designed it as a consumer-facing product where travelers could easily collaborate on and book a cruise vacation with their travel group.
"It becomes a collaborative social experience," he said.
In the process of developing the consumer app, Williams talked to a number of different people, including travel advisors. He noticed something: "The advisor themselves are always the ones who really understood the value of this collaboration the most."
He took a closer look at the travel agency space and realized the platform "becomes exponentially more powerful" when advisors are involved in the space. He also noted that the agency channel sells the majority of cruises.
His goal with Cruisen is to help advisors save time and effort on cruise bookings by empowering the consumer to do more, meaning the advisor can do less.
How Cruisen works
Advisors sign into cruisen and see a list of trips, which represent each trip they are currently planning with consumers.
Consumers have access to a companion app where they fill out profile information, search for cruises and explore different options like which rooms are available and room assignments for travelers. The advisor can monitor everything they're doing. Williams has also built in the ability to ask questions and get immediate answers from AI.
"I think we can really help a lot of people grow and expand their business by making it a lot easier," Williams said.
He said a differentiator for Cruisen is its consumer-facing side.
"As an advisor, we want to make you rethink how you work, to make it better for you," he said.
Agent input
Advisors are excited about the product, Williams said, especially because of the time they spend quoting clients and chasing down customers. With Cruisen, potential cruisers are more likely to do some research of their own, even if guided by the advisor, he said.
He's working with an agent council to help develop the product further.
On that council is Michael Catlow, who owns the I Love Travel Company with his wife, Katie. The agency is home to just under 100 independent contractors. About 90% of the agency's bookings are cruises.
Michael Catlow and Williams were connected via a mutual friend who knew about Cruisen. Williams first showed Catlow the platform about three months ago.
"I literally had goosebumps," Catlow said. "I was bouncing out of the seat."
He is particularly attracted to how easy it is to manage conversations with clients. The Catlows are always on the road (literally -- they have no home base), and the vast majority of their leads come from their social media presence. Each booking involves a lot of back and forth, from date checks to price checks and so on, Catlow said.
That back-and-forth happens in any number of places, from TikTok messages to Instagram and Facebook. The process becomes further complicated when they loop in other members of the traveling party.
"Cruisen allows this community feel," Catlow said. "It allows this collaboration. It allows this conversation for the agent to communicate not just with the client but also with any potential person that may want to go on that cruise."
He estimated the platform would cut out about 75% of the back-and-forth conversation he has with clients today.
"It is a very labor-intensive and time-consuming thing that this just wipes it out completely and allows you to really engage in dialogue and conversation with a client, with all of the cruise details right there," he said.
Catlow has done some testing of the product with repeat clients and has found the process smooth. As long as he can enable direct booking under his agency, he said he is very likely to sign up for the product when it's released.
Cruisen will officially make its debut at CruiseWorld in Fort Lauderdale Nov. 6 to 8. Advisors can sign up for early access online.