TORONTO — Vacation.com has announced new advancements and investments in member-facing technology including the development of a consumer booking engine for CruisePRO, better automation to the back-end applications for Cruise Space, configurable permissions for Agent Universe users, and a single sign-on application for the prepaid hotel program Stream.

“Vacation.com has always been committed to the ongoing investment of money and human capital in all aspects of our business, including member-facing technology,” said Vacation.com Vice President Canada, Christine James.

“We know it’s important to provide our members with the most-advanced tools and resources to assist in making each member agency run more smoothly and ultimately become more profitable.”

Based on feedback from agencies and users, Vacation.com has made enhancements to its proprietary CruisePRO platform, including the launch of CruisePRO Consumer, as well as simplifying the booking process for agents.

Vacation.com agents using CruisePRO now have the option to subscribe to CruisePRO Consumer. CruisePRO Consumer is a consumer cruise booking engine that is placed directly into the agent’s website, allowing customers to search, compare and book their cruises directly.

The booking process for agents using the CruisePRO B2B platform has been simplified by decreasing the total number of steps necessary to complete a booking and reduce scrolling. CruisePRO has also negotiated its first channel-specific exclusive offer with Norwegian Cruise Line.

In another development, Vacation.com’s members-only agent Web portal, Agent Universe, is now enabled for configurable permissions to fit the users’ needs.

Given the difference in preferred suppliers and programs among Vacation.com Canada and U.S. members, each will now have a dedicated view of Agent Universe. U.S. members will only see U.S. preferred suppliers and programs specific to the U.S. member base, while also being able to access content that is shared by both the U.S. and Canada. The same segmentation will also be applied to Canadian-based Agent Universe users.

Agent Universe will also now provide a different level of access for agency managers versus their agents.

And Stream, with access to more than 75,000 hotels and resorts worldwide, now offers a single sign-on from Agent Universe.