Wake up and smell easier cruise bookings, with Royal Caribbean’s new reservation system, which launched today.
Dubbed by the cruise line as the industry’s most advanced, ESPRESSO includes content for Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Club Cruises.
Powered by CruisingPower.com, it will replace the current system under CruiseMatch, which will be discontinued on 30 June 2015.
The new system has guest and profile offerings.
Training for travel agents around Australia and New Zealand are already underway and other are encouraged to contact local Royal Caribbean sales representatives to schedule a one-on-one session.
So makes ESPRESSO so advanced?
ESPRESSO is optimised for agents to use on tablet devices, allowing them to research and book cruise holidays on-the-go.
“ESPRESSO puts the industry’s best reservation system at travel agents’ fingertips and provides them the freedom to engage their clients wherever they are. We created this reservation system based on what our travel partners have told us they need.”
Sean Treacy, Royal Caribbean Cruises Australia Commercial Director
Smart filtering for relevant search results.
It also has a new simplified, intuitive and modern user interface that reduces the number of steps to make a reservation from seven to five.
Inventory is now centralised and travel agents can compare up to four stateroom categories.
Intuitive booking with information in a single display and group rates side-by-side.
There’s also new interactive deck plans, which highlight the best available staterooms and filter specific criteria, such as connecting, closest-to or accessible staterooms, as well as offers the ability to select one or multiple staterooms by simply clicking on them to view their photos, layouts and other details.
There’s deck plans so agents can see where rooms are located.
Other features include side-by-side comparison views of select itineraries to help identify the best cruise for their clients; and it has a predictive search function, which completes preferences as agents type.
In addition to the cruise line’s existing fleet, agents will have a number of new Royal Caribbean vessels to book through ESPRESSO when its new builds launch over the next few years.
The first of the cruise line’s new ships will be Anthem of the Seas, which will be christened on 20 April.
Click here for more on Royal Caribbean’s new ships.
