Carnival Cruise Lines has announced that it will maintain travel agency commission tiers for 2010 at the current level, marking the seventh year in a row the cruise line has held steady on commission thresholds. Carnival noted that it has added six new ships to the market since 2003 and that by basing commission levels on passenger volume versus dollar volume, they are protecting agents from the impact of downward pricing cycles.
"Carnival's commission structure is simple and makes it extremely easy for travel agents to move up the earnings ladder while not penalizing them unfairly when larger economic factors impact overall cruise pricing," said Lynn Torrent, Carnival's senior vice president of sales and guest services. "After careful review, as part of our annual planning process, we decided not to make any changes to our commission structure for 2010. This decision is a further indication of Carnival's desire to help our travel agent partners during this difficult economic period."
For commission purposes, passengers are counted on a seven-day equivalent basis. Commission levels start at 10% moving up to 11% when 25 guests have sailed within a one-year period. 15% commission requires 150 sailed guests and 16% commission level can be attained with 600 guests.
Once a travel agency reaches the number of sailed guests required to move up to the next commission level, the new commission percentage is reflected within Carnival's reservations system within one week and applied to new bookings from that point forward.
Carnival Cruise Lines operates 22 "Fun Ships" on voyages ranging from three to 16 days in length to The Bahamas, Caribbean, Mexican Riviera, Alaska, Hawaii, Panama Canal, Canada, New England, Europe and Bermuda. The line currently has two new ships scheduled for delivery between now and 2011. The first of those, the 130,000-ton Carnival Dream, is set to debut September 21st, 2009.
