Celebrity Cruises Realigns Travel Advisor Sales Organization

Celebrity Cruises has changed its sales structure, aligning inside sales with national accounts under Jennifer Suarez, associate vice president of national accounts.

The change was announced by Dondra Ritzenthaler, senior vice president of sales-the Americas, and Keith Lane, vice president of sales-the Americas.

The change means Celebrity will provide top field accounts with key account manager support while driving incremental trade business in key cities via the line’s field sales managers, who will also be armed with marketing and social media tools for travel advisors.

Additionally, Celebrity’s regional marketing managers will refocus on key partner marketing efforts with tools such as Celebrity’s Marketing Assistance Program (MAP) 2.0, accessible through CruisingPower.com. MAP features educational modules, webinars and workshops designed to share best practices and tools to drive incremental business.

The new organizational structure will go into effect May 23.

“Our trade partners have always been the most critical part of Celebrity’s distribution model and we remain vitally important to one another’s future success as we re-emerge from the post-shutdown world,” Ritzenthaler said. “This new structure leverages our very talented sales team to uniquely support our national and key accounts with more frequent and consistent points of contact at every stage of the sales process to drive win/win results for everyone.”

The new structure follows several recent introductions including FlexPay, which allows flexible payment, and a new Future Cruise Credit redemption option that applies credits directly to outstanding balances.