Carnival Cruise Lines and Razorfish today announced the launch of a groundbreaking new social commerce Facebook application that allows users to easily view, compare, select and share Carnival cruises with their Facebook friends. The application, the first of its kind in the cruise industry, allows users to engage their social network in their vacation planning through personalized newsfeed updates and even invite friends to book the same trip.

The application, available on Carnival’s official Facebook fan page (www.facebook.com/carnival), enables the user to explore all available Carnival cruise options without leaving Facebook by providing the functionality to sort cruises by date, duration, port of call, and accommodation type. Once users decide on a particular cruise, they can share the detailed cruise information with their Facebook friends by simply clicking a button. Users can also customize their newsfeed messages, which include a link to the cruise, to invite friends to book the trip as well.

“A Carnival cruise is a very social experience and this application is a natural extension of our efforts to engage our nearly 250,000 Facebook fans in a unique and exciting way,” said Jim Berra, Carnival’s chief marketing officer. “By allowing our customers to share their cruising plans with Facebook friends, we are making it easier for them to plan group trips and encourage others to join in the fun.”

Digital marketing agency Razorfish sought to tap into the power of the online community to drive engagement with the Carnival brand. As a result, the agency helped conceptualize, create and design the application as a way to offer the cruise line’s products and services in native locations for consumers.

“This is a great example of how a brand can create a meaningful, relevant and social experience that enhances an activity consumers are engaging in anyway, in this case sharing their vacation plans on Facebook,” said Cristina Lawrence, director of word of mouth and social media marketing at Razorfish. “Carnival realizes people’s passion for cruising is ‘socially’ contagious, which is why we helped them design an application that enables consumers to share the real-time excitement of the booking process and the opportunity to invite friends to join them.”

Once users have taken advantage of the Facebook application to choose and share their Carnival cruise plans, they will be directed to the appropriate shopping cart page on Carnival.com to finalize the transaction.