| CLIA’s 21st birthday

THE Australian cruise industry celebrated the 21st anniversary of CLIA Australasia and the beginning of the Aussie summer cruise season last night with a stunning view of Sydney Harbour at Pier One.

The event marked 21 years since the founding of the organisation in Australia, which was then known as the Int’l Cruise Council of Australia and has since joined the global association of CLIA and morphed into CLIA Australasia.

Sarina Bratton, who set up the organisation in 1996, told attendees that at the beginning she faced sceptics, given the size of the Australian cruise industry at the time, but now there were 5,000 individual travel agents who were members of CLIA in Australia.

Of these, 2,000 were actively training online and doing on average 26 modules a year.

Pictured are: Steve Odell, chairman CLIA Australasia; Sarina Bratton chairman Asia-Pacific Ponant and Joel Katz, md CLIA Australasia.