Royal Caribbean Cruises today said it is rolling out the next phase of Espresso, the company’s travel agent reservation system, featuring new capabilities for groups business with the cruise operator’s three major brands: Royal Caribbean, Celebrity and Azamara.
The latest updates include the ability to create and book group space, simplified groups management and Espresso’s first group amenity points redemption feature.
New features include:
Headquarter groups – Members of a headquarter – a cooperative of travel agencies – have the ability to easily view and book into their headquarter’s group inventory
Simplified groups management – Reserving and managing all groups can be done in fewer steps and clicks
Group amenity points redemption – Group amenity plus points now can be easily redeemed, shared and even purchased online to enhance clients’ vacations
Streamlined groups payments – Easy-to-use, more intuitive group shell and group booking payment system, which can generate guest invoices
Expanded groups reporting – Group shell and group booking owners can create and manage their own reports, including booking invoices and financial statements
Enhanced stateroom availability search – Travel partners can find available staterooms on multiple decks with interactive deck plans, including the 50 best open staterooms per category and accommodations closest to a specific stateroom with the “Closest Stateroom” filter
Espresso was launched in 2015 and delivers an extensive roster of resources specially designed to offer travel partners an intuitive booking experience, said Royal Caribbean.
“The well-rounded program’s powerful tools and features have been met with resounding applause, the most popular being the single-view function – a side-by-side comparison of individual and groups pricing and availability, interactive deck plans, which highlight the best available staterooms and can filter results by specific criteria, such as those that are connecting, closest-to or accessible accommodations; as well as guest profiles and offers that identify past guests, recent promotions they have received and accommodation preferences. Travel agents can look forward to even more enhancements in the future,” the company said in a prepared statement.
