Norwegian Cruise Line and VAX VacationAccess announce an agreement to provide offers and content to enable VAX’s highly engaged travel agents, many of whom are home-based and independent, to book cruise vacations. Both organizations believe travel agents will benefit from access to Norwegian’s content on VAX.

“For 10 years, VAX VacationAccess has served as the premier online platform for travel agents to shop and book leisure vacation travel. Norwegian Cruise Line is one of the industry’s most agent-focused cruise suppliers with a growing interest in online distribution,” said Kathy Fitzpatrick, president of VAX VacationAccess. “This collaboration is a natural fit.”

Norwegian plans to publish agent-targeted content in their VAX VacationAccess Supplier Center, including last-minute specials, customizable marketing tools, sales resources, and more. Norwegian is also participating in weekly VAX emails to travel agents and providing easy access to product training. Their timing coincides with the launch of their “Free Upgrades for All” offer to travel agents during Wave season.

VAX VacationAccess is the largest online distribution platform for the leisure travel agent community and gives travel suppliers a variety of ways to reach qualified travel agents. Celebrating its 10th year, VAX invests in innovative technology to help travel agents and agencies become more productive and profitable.

“Norwegian will utilize VAX VacationAccess to educate travel agents, provide tools and sales tips, and publish exclusive content for VAX members,” said Camille Olivere, Norwegian Cruise Line’s vice president of sales. “This is an amazing opportunity to reach VAX’s huge agent audience, many of whom have expressed interest in booking cruises. We know VAX will be an ideal tool to develop confident Norwegian Cruise Line sellers.”

According to recent VAX VacationAccess market research, VAX users want more access to cruise content, training and marketing tools. VAX agents identified training, the ability to search and book last-minute cruise offers, availability of brochures and collateral to share with customers, and strong relationships with preferred cruise lines as important to growing their businesses. 86.9 percent of VAX cruise bookers said they include pre- and post-cruise travel product in their cruise vacation itineraries, and 68 percent are booking via cruise line websites, so providing cruise vacation content in VAX makes sense.

“We were pleased to hear that VAX VacationAccess travel agents are ready and willing to receive cruise content, and we are excited to be the first exclusive cruise supplier for 2011,” said Olivere. “VAX is known for its highly engaged travel agent audience, as well as the ability to reach home-based, independent and new agents. This is the perfect opportunity for us to match our world-class cruise product with travel agents who can bring new leisure vacationers to experience Norwegian’s Freestyle Cruising vacations.”