Agents are continuing to experience problems when booking through MSC Cruises. The cruise company last week advised agents to book online (see eTNW January 31), however agents have experienced some issues with the online system.
David Randall, marketing manager MSC Cruises, says the company is aware of the problems agents have been experiencing since the start of this year. This is due to unprecedented call volumes. “When dealing with a direct passenger the talk time is longer. The demographic of our passengers has also evolved to be more representative of the South African population, meaning we have more first-time cruisers than ever before, who require more time to facilitate their bookings.”
He maintains that the portal is the best solution for the trade to make bookings. “Currently we receive over 75% of all trade business via the msconline portal but, that said, it is not without its problems,” he comments.
eTNW received a comment from an agent who was unable to book via the portal. David says this is because the portal cannot facilitate fly-cruise bookings. “The travel agents’ portal is not able to facilitate the live inventory of the GDS integration of the MSC booking system. This would be available if we secured allocations of specific flights and cruises but, due to the nature of South African travellers combining various types of travel with family or ‘do it yourself’ stopovers to Europe, we have chosen not to take risk. We would encourage agents to utilise the ‘contact us’ button on msconline with their enquiry which will be handled by our dedicated msconline helpdesk consultant.”
- Mandy Watson
