Virgin Voyages is outlining a completely different approach to travel agent registration and brand education, creating a digital community, according to a statement. 

Virgin has created two digital homes specifically for their First Mates (travel partners) to help make booking on Virgin Voyages as seamless and enjoyable as possible.

The new homes are FirstMates.com and the First Mates SeaCiety Facebook group, a community for education and communication.

On FirstMates.com, a First Mate can register to do business with Virgin Voyages 100% digitally. It takes less than 10 minutes to register as a business owner and in under 15 minutes, First Mates can be registered and selling cruises.

The First Mates SeaCiety Facebook group is a learning community of edutainment for First Mates. Interesting, entertaining videos show up on members’ Facebook feeds, so members do not have to seek out the content – it will come straight to them.

“Virgin Voyages knows First Mates are on social media, using the platform to bring in business. To streamline the process and make working with Virgin Voyages as simple as possible, Virgin Voyages is bringing all brand information to those social media platforms First Mates are already on,” the company said. 

The closed Facebook group is open to all First Mates who register on FirstMates.com. After registering, FirstMates.com will invite registered users to join the Facebook group.

The Facebook group will feature original content series created by Virgin Voyages.

They have created 11 campaigns thus far, all driven from the point of view of a First Mate. Each video shows First Mates how to use Virgin Voyages’ assets to sell, showing them the information that is most beneficial to their business. Virgin Voyages wants to make it easy for First Mates and ultimately help First Mates put more money in their own pockets. Each video relates back to a core brand principal, teaching First Mates about Virgin Voyages values.

The first original series International Waters, produced with Level and Vice Productions premieres this week. Starring Ginger Minj from RuPaul’s Drag Race, the video features five cast mates on a vintage yacht from the 1920’s in docu-style series. The first episode, Category of One, explains why Virgin Voyages uses drag queens in their marketing and how this ties back to the core of the brand.