Technology supplier Click With Technology has taken its highest value cruise booking ever as its cruise platform broke the £10 million revenue barrier.
The platform, launched in January 2009, is being used by a number of travel agents including 1st4cruising and Custom Cruise, and by Norwegian Cruise Line for sales on its website.
It was this site that took the £35,000 booking last week for a garden villa suite on Norwegian Jade. The customer had not spoken to anyone in the call centre.
Dan Caplin, CWT director, said the booking suggested as people become more familiar with using the internet higher value bookings will be made although the online market remains in its infancy.
But Caplin said agents should also be able to benefit from this move online. The previous highest booking made on the CWT platform was with cruise agent cruise.co.uk for £24,500.
Currently just 2% of cruises are booked online but this figure is expected to rise.
Caplin said: “What we are keen to do is target two types of customers. Some like the one who did the £35,000 booking will be experienced, they know what they want and when they want to go. They just want to go ahead and book it, so it needs to be automated.
“The second type is the first timer so the website needs to be content rich and there needs to be a phone number. They use the internet to research and the majority of calls agents get are from people saying ‘I have seen this on your website, can I get it cheaper online?’”
The first CWT customer to take its cruise platform and its dynamic packaging platform, Custom Cruises, has now gone live.
“It works well, we have now got to focus on ancillary product like transfers, insurance and car parking.
“We have a few redesigns to do and some enhancements we feel it needs then we will white label it. That’s the next phase of development.”
CWT is working on improvements to its back office offering, having spent much of 2009 on research and development for its front end.
Caplin also said it was looking to integrate more cruise lines into the platform, taking it from 16 to 20. More specialist operators will be added, with the brands in the Cruise Portfolio being the latest.