SEATTLE — The results are in: Windstar Cruises’ Star Promise program has been a hit with travel agents following its launch in 2016.

The small ship cruise line announced the program last year as a promise to the travel agent community to be the “best travel agent partner in the industry for small ship cruising.”

This promise included four cornerstones of delivery: an ‘Extraordinary Guest Experience’ for clients; ‘Fresh Sales Tools and Support’ to help agents build their Windstar business; ‘Outstanding Educational Programs’ for both veteran Windstar agents and agents new to selling Windstar; and ‘Excellent Agent Service’ every day, every interaction and every reservation.

Results for Star Promise show that Windstar has been successful at making agents’ jobs easier to sell and manage client cruise vacations on the line’s six ships. Marked improvements on all fronts have contributed to the success, including executive-level commitment to putting agents first; expansion to global deployment with new cruise destinations including Asia, Alaska, and Canada / New England; and 24/7 agent access to book and manage reservations through a new online booking engine.

Windstar also launched a refreshed and updated online Star Specialist travel agent training program, as well as new fam experiences onboard with more than 500 travel professionals taking advantage in the last year. There’s also Trade Winds, a new agent newsletter covering a variety of Windstar news including selling tips and product news developed specifically for the agent audience.

The most significant development in terms of travel agent service has been in the form of launching bookWindstar Online, a new online booking tool that allows agents to make and access bookings in real time, at any time.

In addition, group business has doubled under the new program, and agents are excited and motivated by the new online booking tools, namely Windstar’s redesigned and easy-to-use Agent Hub. The hub serves as a convenient one-stop-shop for sales promotions, company news, training tools, and other resources, as well as provides access to bookWindstar Online, the brand-new booking tool for agents available 24/7.

“It’s been a year since we launched Star Promise and we are seeing overwhelmingly positive results. Every day I hear from one of our valued travel agent partners about how a particular initiative has helped them increase their Windstar Sales as well as grow their business overall,” said Windstar Vice President of Sales Steve Simao, CTC. “We’ve worked hard to deliver on our promises in the past year and I can confidently say we have delivered! Going forward we will continue to use our promises as a guiding principal and we will continue to seek out agent input. We want to be travel agents’ #1 small ship cruise line of choice.”

Travel agents are encouraged to visit Windstar’s Agent Hub to sign up for the Trade Winds e-newsletter, gain access to various training tools, follow Windstar Sales on Facebook, and take advantage of the new online booking engine at agenthub.windstarcruises.com.