Making clients happy can definitely give you the warm fuzzies, but Virgin Voyages knows it’s your bottom line that genuinely brings you joy—and they’ve been all here for it since day one. For example, while several cruise lines have hit the headlines announcing they’ve parted ways with Non-Commissionable Fares (NCFs), Virgin Voyages simply never had them to start with.
“You know, it baffles me as to why they’re even out there,” says John Diorio, North American v.p. of sales, for the cruise line, on a call with Recommend. “We’ve never had them at Virgin Voyages.”
“When we started our journey of building this brand and knowing how much we needed the travel advisor community, we actually went up to them and asked them what were some of those pain points when selling cruises, and the number one thing that came back on that list was NCFs—what are they, why do they exist, why am I not getting paid on this magical thing. So we knew from day one that was not going to be part of how we did business. Since launching the company, we’ve never had NCFs and we will never have NCFs.”
And in addition to the NCFs being a non-starter, Diorio adds the company also pays a commission on all pre-voyage sales. This means First Mates that sell bar tabs, shore excursions and basically anything the traveler can buy before they board the ship is commissionable. “The earning potential is really strong with Virgin Voyages,” stresses Diorio.
If you’re new to Virgin Voyages, you’ll find a big part of that earning potential is made easier thanks to the top-notch programs they have in place to help boost your bottom line, including the award-winning Seacademy learning platform, which Diorio calls a “game changer,” and their new booking platform, LetsGoBook.
“Again, we listened to our advisors who were looking for new and easier ways to book Virgin Voyages, so we created ‘LetsGoBook,’” explains Diorio. “The premise of this is that every single one of our First Mates has a their own dedicated URL on VirginVoyages.com that they can use to book their clients, or better yet, in this world of social media and promotion, they can actually embed into any communications to their customers about Virgin Voyages.”
With this URL, your client can take all the time they need to check out itineraries and cabin classes and then book whenever they’re ready, day or night. When that booking comes in, you get the credit and can then manage the booking in the backend.
According to Diorio, this new technology now accounts for nearly 20 percent of the company’s North American trade bookings on a daily basis—no surprise, given the ease with which your clients can pick their perfect vacation.
The Virgin Voyages Tech is Great, But Wait, There’s More!
In addition to all the new and evolving technology, this year Virgin Voyages will welcome two new ships: the Resilient Lady in May 2023, sailing out of Athens, Greece, followed by Brilliant Lady. The latter will be ready to set sail in December 2023 out of San Juan, Puerto Rico, with a New Year’s Eve sailing and two 7-night itineraries to the Southern Caribbean.
For more information, visit virginvoyages.com.
