Costa, Europe’s Number One Cruise Line, has launched a new travel agent portal, sellcosta.com, a one-stop shop for agents to access everything they need to best sell “Cruising Italian Style.” The recently-created web site features easy-to-use tools for navigating information on groups, webinars, current bookings and more.
Rather than visiting Costa’s consumer web site, booking engine and group site, agents may now access them all at sellcosta.com. The site also features Costa’s new e-brochures, current news, promotions, photo libraries, webinar schedules and access to Costa’s online training academy, C.O.S.T.A.
“We wanted to make it as easy and efficient for our travel agent partners to do business with us online, which is why we created this one-stop shop on the web,” said Linda Parrotta, vice president of marketing for Costa North America. “The site has everything agents need at their fingertips including information on our most current promotions, marketing materials, booking functions and training.”
Costa Cruises is Italy and Europe’s number one cruise line. For the past 60 years its ships have sailed the world, offering the best in Italian style, hospitality and cuisine and providing dream vacations with the best in fun and relaxation. In 2007 over 1.1 million guests chose to cruise with Costa, a record for the European cruise industry. The company’s 12 fleet members, each with her own distinctive characteristics and unique style, all fly the Italian flag and sail each year to 250 destinations in the Mediterranean, Northern Europe, the Baltic Sea, the Caribbean, South America, the United Arab Emirates, the Far East and the Indian Ocean.
Two more new ships the Costa Luminosa, which was recently delivered in Italy and the Costa Pacifica, due for delivery at the end of May, will be christened together in Genoa, Italy on June 5 this year. Three additional ships are on order.
Costa Cruises has been certified by RINA (Italian Shipping Register) with the BEST4, an integrated system of voluntary certification of corporate compliance with the highest standards governing social accountability (SA 8000, issued in 2001), environment (UNI EN ISO 14001, 2004), safety (OHSAS 18001, 1999) and quality (UNI EN ISO 9001, 2000). All ships in the Costa fleet have been assigned RINA’s Green Star notation certifying that they are operated in compliance with the highest environmental protection standards. Costa Cruises is an official partner of the WWF for the protection of the marine ecoregions of the Mediterranean, the Greater Antilles and Brazil. In Mediobanca’s 2008 survey of over 3,700 Italian enterprises that recorded revenue of at least 50 million euros the previous fiscal year, Costa Crociere S.p.A. ranks 72nd in terms of sales and in 12th place in regards to profitability.
