This Agent Wrap is short and simple, much like this week has been at the Travel Weekly office. Just kidding – it’s been long and full of naps.

Your Travel & Cruise kicks off New Year with new website

One of the biggest perks of being a Your Travel & Cruise home-based agent is having a personalised website and the host agency is helping members take their online brand to the next level this year with an unprecedented level of customisation and features.

While all Your Travel & Cruise members are provided with a mobile, tablet and desktop-friendly website which operates under their own domain name, a recent overhaul of website platforms has allowed members to further tailor their site to suit their individual brand.

For no additional cost, Your Travel & Cruise members can now personalise their websites using customisable pages, content tailored to their niche, new colour combinations, and a profile and blog feature allowing each agent to highlight their experience and specialty.

Busy year of cruise education for travel agents

Australian and New Zealand travel agents have finished a busy year of professional development, completing more than 23,000 online training modules in the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) Learning Academy during 2019.

The annual tally brings the total number of modules completed by CLIA members to more than 114,000 since the online training platform was launched in late 2014.

In addition to their Learning Academy achievements, CLIA travel agent members also uploaded more than 1,000 certificates confirming their completion of training programs offered by cruise lines during 2019. More than 1,700 agents tuned in to CLIA’s 39 live webinars though the year, and more than 650 tickets were booked for the sell-out series of CLIA LIVE events across Australia and New Zealand.

The CLIA online Learning Academy includes more than 1,000 pages of content and more than 150 downloadable resources for CLIA travel agent members. Its content covers the full spectrum of the cruise industry, including cruise lines that together represent 95 per cent of the world’s cruise capacity.

itravel Family Funday onboard Royal’s Voyager of the Seas

itravel’s first family fun day was a success, with staff excited to come together once again to end a fabulous 2019. This saw 75 agents and their families on board Royal Caribbean’s Voyager of the Seas for some fun in the Sun!

The kids were in for a ride, being treated to exclusive access to the ships thrilling activities. First of which was The Flowrider, a 12-metre-long surf simulator as well as access to the perfect storm water slide, twisting and turning their way down 3 stories of the ship.

Express Travel Group signs technology agreement with Aeronology

Express Travel Group (ETG) signed a technology agreement with Aeronology. The pact covers all applications created by Aeronology implemented across ETG members throughout Australia and exclusively for First Travel Group (FTG) members in New Zealand commencing with ticketing, robotics, wholesale booking and payment services.

Tea and Temples for Personal Travel Managers in Sri Lanka

On the rail journey from Kandy to Nuwara Eliya, passengers travel through the misty green tea hills of central Sri Lanka, stopping to sample the country’s most famous export, Ceylon tea at a tea plantation along the way. This experience was just one of the highlights during a recent TravelManagers famil to this fascinating island nation.

The famil group of nine personal travel managers (PTMs) were escorted throughout the week-long itinerary by Chad Carey from GetAbout Asia. During their time in Sri Lanka they travelled throughout the southwest quarter of the country, taking in many of its most popular sights including the aforementioned tea country, the ancient rock fortress at Sigiriya and the city of Galle on the south coast.