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Choosing an incentive cruise for a company's corporate incentive travel program can be a very exciting venture. With all inclusive services and many exotic destinations from which to choose, employees will be motivated to earn their place on the cruise ship. Planning an incentive cruise should not be undertaken at the last minutes. While last minute planning will not make a ship charter impossible, advance planning can ensure enough space for all eligible cruise participants. Advance planning can also help companies make certain that they get the best rates. A meeting planner can offer these tips for successful incentive cruise planning:
1. Booking the cruise – the sooner the cruise is planned, the better. In this way, companies may have their choice of things such as cruise lines and ships. They may also have their choice of itinerary as well.
2. Choosing an itinerary – having an idea of preferred destinations will be most helpful. In addition, companies will also need to consider the length of the cruise. Cruise length often helps determine cruise destination.
3. Choosing a ship – companies need to ensure the ship they choose can easily accommodate their employees. Choosing a ship that is not too big or too small will be essential.
Meetings at sea are all the rage, and it is easy to see why. Meetings at sea have all the luxuries and necessities needed to conduct business meetings, but they are so much more. Just what do meetings at sea have to offer businesses and organizations that have traditionally used hotels and conference centers? How about:
Everyone loves a cruise, and a cruise meeting incentive is a great way to inspire excitement and energy, and motivate employees. There are many cruise lines, ships and destinations from which to choose. One easy way to source a group cruise incentive event is Seasite.com. You can create a single RFP, and plan your group cruise entirely online.
The Carnival Fantasy sails in to her new home – Charleston, South Carolina.
Cruises have always had an air of luxury of extravagance, dating back to when the first cruise lines began to offer elegant vacation options, rather than simply providing seafaring voyages for transportation purposes. While most people still consider a cruise a luxury experience, present day cruises are actually quite cost-effective and convenient for incentive travel packages, meetings at sea, conferences and trade shows, and other corporate events.
Aside from the cost savings and easy of planning that cruises provide, here are ten additional advantages of choosing a cruise for your next event or travel award:
1. Cruises offer personalized, attentive service, which enhances participants’ experience. 2. Cruises offer inclusive packages that assist planners in sticking to the defined travel budget. 3. Cruises provide a fulfilling, exciting travel experience for employees at a variety of income levels. 4. This exciting travel option is highly motivating for staff and encourages increased performance. 5. The self-contained environment makes event planning easy and convenient. 6. Planners can offer their participants multiple destinations with no additional effort. 7. Sharing an exciting travel experience is ideal for teambuilding. 8. Cruises offer all of the luxuries of resort hotels with the added value of foreign destinations. 9. Entertainment options abound, providing participants with plenty of activity options that the planner does not have to organize. 10. A contained environment ensures that more attendees will show up to onboard meetings and events.
Newly launched Seasite.com provides 24/7 access to all cruise brands, and the most content-rich and searchable database for the cruise industry.
Miami, FL (Vocus/PRWEB ) January 21, 2010 — Planning a group cruise requires searching for detailed ship information and not always finding what you need – even on the cruise lines’ own web sites. Now, with Seasite.com, the first cruise portal for meetings and events, group organizers can find all the ship data they need in one place – at no cost.
"I’ve bookmarked Seasite.com – it’s invaluable in selecting the right ship for a group and to verify it’s a good fit before I present it to my client,” said Millie Evans, President/CEO Alliance Incentives and Meetings. "And for operational planning, it has all the info I need – which isn’t on cruise line web sites.”
Seasite.com provides 24/7 access to all cruise brands, and the most content-rich and searchable database for the cruise industry, so that planners can:
1. Find ship data never before offered online or in print, such as: - Meeting/function room capacities - Dining room seating, and details for private group dining - Outdoor group function areas - A/V equipment lists 2- Search, compare, and save favorite cruises; then create one RFP and submit it to multiple cruise lines. (Group pricing is the same as booking direct.)
3- See the cruise lines most committed to groups, and search their mini-sites (all laid out the same — when you’re familiar with one, you’re familiar with all!)
4- Search by ship name for a chronological list of future Itineraries and Basic Ship Information, and find it faster than a brochure.
5- Search for a cruise anywhere in the world by any date range (as short as several days or as long as several months). Sort your results by meetings-specific criteria.
6- Refer to the Knowledge Center to answer all your questions, including these:
7- Discover a list of "Cruise Gems” – those rare, hard to find, short cruises.
"Everyone who plans group travel should take a good look, and bookmark Seasite.com if they want to simplify cruise sourcing and planning” said Jo Kling, CEO Seasite.com.
For more information on Seasite.com, A Landry & Kling Company, visit www.seasite.com or call 888-713-1371.
About Seasite.com/Landry & Kling Seasite.com is designed for meeting and event planners who want more control in the cruise sourcing and planning process. It’s the fastest and easiest way for group organizers to master the world of cruising, building on all that’s been learned by Landry & Kling, who are credited with being the first distribution channel between the cruise industry and corporate America. Now, 28 years since their startup, they have responded to changing times by creating Seasite.com, with innovative cruise sourcing tools that enable meeting planners and other travel intermediaries to be more pro-active and confident in booking cruises. Seasite group pricing is the same as booking direct, with the advantage of impartial Cruise Advisors to assist as needed.
Tough economic times and shrinking budgets do not mean that your company must eliminate incentive travel packages. On the contrary, there are many cost-effective packages that will meet your needs and reward your employees for their hard work, without breaking the bank.
For example, companies based in Los Angeles, or other Southern California cities can opt for incentive travel that is a little closer to home and far more cost-effective than extravagant, exotic trips. Two- to four-day incentive cruises that stop in San Diego and popular Mexican ports provide a number of low-cost options for incentive travel. Other options include weekend trips to Solvang or Santa Barbara, or train trips up the coast.
Companies that are based in Seattle, Tacoma or the Greater Puget Sound area also have a wide variety of low-cost incentive travel options. Amtrak offers special train travel packages to the popular town of Leavenworth at certain times of the year and has regularly scheduled service to Vancouver, Canada. Seattle also has a major cruise port with cruise lines offering two- to four-day cruises to Victoria Island and Vancouver, or to stops along the coast to San Francisco, California.
These, of course, are just a few options that are available for these two major business centers, but regardless of where your company is located, there are cost-effective incentive travel packages available that will assist you in showing your appreciation to employees and encourage high productivity, while helping you stay within your allotted travel budget.
Incentive travel planners are faced with clients who just don't have a large budget to spend, these days. Small businesses are cutting out unnecessary expenses with the hope that their employees will not notice, and larger corporations — especially those who accepted government bailout money — are trying to restore their image of competence and frugality. Incentive travel is a scary proposition for them both.
Think incentive cruise. Cruising is often a much more affordable choice for people who love to travel in general, and could be your answer to the problem of affordable incentive travel. Why? Because cruises are relaxing, cruise lines have expanded their ports of call, and a cruise is typically all inclusive.
A cruise event can save you as much as 40% compared to a land based hotel venue because almost everything is included. Meals, meeting rooms, A/V, coffee breaks, activities, entertainment and even room service are part of the all-inclusive cruise fare. You spend nothing more for linens, florals, lighting, labor or state/city taxes, which saves your client money and gives you time to devote to your business agenda and attendees.
Planners may also save yourselves some headaches other than financial related ones. If you have a small incentive travel group that is from a foreign culture, you might consider a cruise that will appeal to that culture. For instance, let's pretend Irish music and culture has become all the rage in Eastern Europe. You have been hired to find a cruise for a group of Eastern European business people. Your logical choice will include Ireland, and expand to the other British Isles if there is time just for a bonus.
Cruises can, indeed, be a port in this financial storm the world is in right now. Next time you are trying to find an affordable incentive travel program, take a few minutes and check on group cruise events.
You will be surprised at how easy it is to plan a meeting at sea, and stay within your budget.
10 Reasons Why Seasite.Com Will Revolutionize The Cruise Meetings & Incentive Market
1. Seasite.com is the first and only web portal for the cruise meetings and incentive market. Until now, there has been no single, online platform dedicated to serving the highly specialized cruise meetings market. Seasite’s innovative technology opens up the untapped world of cruising for planners, connecting cruise lines and meeting professionals like never before. Cruise sourcing can now be as easy and efficient as planning hotel events, and equally reliable – thanks to the tried and tested experience of Seasite’s founders, Landry & Kling, the meetings-at-sea experts.
2. One source delivers it all. The tedious tasks of phoning and searching multiple cruise web sites in vain are gone, as Seasite provides impartial access any day, any time, to 35 cruise brands (over 250 ships), and its meeting-friendly search criteria even allows users to search for charters of a specific size, plus three other specialty searches. A simple click compares ship choices along with maps, itineraries, ship profiles and essential meeting planning data.
3. Data not found elsewhere. Planner’s Guides offer comprehensive ship data harvested only for Seasite – never before published – not even on individual cruise line web sites. Planners will find meeting space grids, function room capacities, outdoor function areas, group dining information, photo galleries, an inventory of guest rooms by category, AV equipment, communications technology and more.
4. High tech/high touch. Rich data and sophisticated search technology lets planners “loose” yet “in control,” providing 24/7 answers and ship-sourcing tools so they can become more knowledgeable planners and educated cruise buyers. At the same time, Cruise Advisors, who are trained by Landry & Kling, offer the expertise, backup and support to source and deliver with confidence.
5. Search, sort and conquer. Seasite’s powerful search capabilities allow planners to drill down and refine searches by cruise line, ship rating, size, capacity of largest function room, cruise style (floating resort, boutique ship, sail ship, river boat), by port or day of departure, destination, cruise length and much more.
6. Unique eRFP process. Streamlining and simplifying what can be an arduous process, Seasite offers the first group cruise RFP online, all supported by Cruise Advisors. One single RFP is sent to multiple cruise lines, generating electronic bottom-line quotes for a quick and accurate “apples to apples” comparison.
7. Cost cutting and value driven. Cruise meetings can provide cost savings of 25-40%, and Seasite helps make that a reality. No longer is sourcing and planning a meeting or incentive at sea labor intensive and intimidating for those unfamiliar with the process. With Seasite, everything you need to research the possibilities and create a successful program is a click away (with expert Cruise Advisors at your service when needed). Seasite.com finally puts cruise sourcing on par with hotels, so group travel buyers can easily compare price/value – their main focus in today’s economy.
8. The ultimate source for Do It Yourselfers (DIY). An indispensible tool for savvy DIY planners as well as those looking to learn more about cruise meetings and incentives, the Knowledge Center is a repository of information and advice designed for all levels of expertise. It includes operational checklists and timelines, comparison of using a cruise verses a hotel, how to overcome obstacles and myths about business at sea, distance between airports and seaports, sample day-by-day agendas, cruise contract terminology, a cruise event feasibility quiz; case histories and much more. Planners no longer have to rely on others to spoon-feed them information and ideas. A wealth of data and resources, driven by a robust search engine, allows 24/7 research and planning anywhere, anytime.
9. Creativity and inspiration. Seasite’s “Great Ideas” section stimulates individuality, creativity and customization. An invaluable source of ideas, planners will find recommended “Gems,” (rare and hard to find, short cruise opportunities), a “Top 10” list of best ships and itineraries for groups and “Quick Picks” with cruise ideas based on group size. Additionally, the all important aspect of on-board dining is transformed from challenging to exciting as Seasite provides the facts about dining facilities, seating capacities and exclusive use of specialty restaurants.
10. It’s free. There’s no cost or membership fee to use Seasite.com and pricing is the same as buying direct.
For more information on Seasite.com, A Landry & Kling Company, visit www.seasite.com or call 888- 713-1371.
Event planners who work with inventive groups are faced nowadays with clients who just don’t have the money to spend. Smaller business are trying to cut out luxuries with the hope that no one will say anything, and larger companies–especially the ones with bailout money–are trying to regain an image of competence and frugality. Incentive travel is a scary proposition for them both.
Enter the cruise. These are often much more affordable choices for people who love to travel in general, and could be your answer to the problem of affordable incentive travel. Why? Because cruises are relaxing, cruise lines have expanded their ports of call, and many of them offer sightseeing excursions in the cruise package.
Another cost-cutting advantage of the cruise is the other inclusions. If you book a pyramid tour in Egypt, for instance, you also have to plan for accommodations, meals, other activities, etc. All of this is included in the cruise. Cruises offer enormous and variable meals spreads, and there is something for everyone there. Read the rest of this entry »
