| CLIA Cruise News & Views 1 Dec 16: 2016 CLIA Highlights

It’s that time of the year when CLIA
Membership renewals are being
sent out so no better time than now
to recap on another outstanding
year for CLIA & the cruise industry.
In Feb CLIA delivered the 15th
annual Cruise Industry Awards
where we recognised outstanding
achievements from the prior year.
In May we delivered the 2015
Source Market Report that showed
more than 1m Aussies had taken an
ocean cruise in 12 months.
The Source Market Report is the
genesis of all media coverage
surrounding the industry and
what a year it has been! We have
broken all records based on media
monitoring undertaken on our
behalf including a record month in
Sep that was then smashed in Oct!
The 3rd annual Cruise360 was
brought down in September with
attendees very upbeat at how far
this event has evolved in its short
history. A first class MC (Ross
Greenwood) doubled as a well informed
moderator ensuring
panellists were on their toes when it
came to the tough questions.
CLIA’s long-awaited membership
system was re-launched in May
with members now able to maintain
their own profile through our new
web-based platform and apply for
the much anticipated Global Cruise
Industry ID Card – “Embarc”.
And finally an in-depth study of
booking patterns amongst major
brands in 2016, revealed CLIA
Accredited agents are consistently
achieving returns 15% greater than
non-CLIA accredited agents.

CONTRIBUTOR: Brett Jardine, CLIA Australasia