I have written about how Sherrie and I are actively involved in the Hospitality and Tourism Academies of the Metropolitan Nashville-Davidson County school system. The program's curriculum has attracted national attention with educators coming from all over the U.S. to learn about it.
We originally saw this as an opportunity to identify retail vacation planner candidates because we shared the concern of other travel retailers about the aging of the retail travel profession and difficulties in attracting late teens and 20-somethings.
It hasn't helped that "travel agent" was identified as one of the Top 10 dead-end jobs or that even President Obama took potshots at the profession when he stated confidently, not once but twice, that there were no longer bank tellers or travel agents because both jobs had been washed away by technology.
Except he was wrong about bank tellers (it turns out there are more today than ever before), and the only thing that has changed about travel professionals is that many are no longer called "agents."
What studies actually show is that while "cashier," "clerk" and "order processor" are dying jobs, "sales associate" is an up-and-coming profession.
A sales associate is defined as a person who recommends merchandise based on a client's individual requirements, provides advice to clients regarding particular products or services, explains the advantages of the merchandise to customers and answers their queries and concerns.
Travel suppliers, particularly cruise lines, have expressed a similar concern about what is happening to the agent channel as a result of the graying of the profession and the difficulty of attracting a new generation of travel retailers or sales associates.
Some have been eager to assist, notably Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. and Norwegian Cruise Line. Both have opened their agent training curricula to high school students and have arranged for students who are participating in familiarization cruises (at student expense) to get behind-the-scenes looks at the cruise industry.
One would think that, given such a consensus about the issue of recruiting, there would be no problem attracting new agents at all. Except there is a problem because, among other things, the retail travel profession has a reputation for relatively low pay, and the prospect of improving that reputation grows dimmer each passing year for agencies that have traditionally focused on selling cruises.
That's because cruise lines have exacerbated the situation by significantly reducing sales compensation.
Of late, much has been said about the effect of noncommissionable fees (NCFs) on agents' earnings. It's true that began as a $50 consumer "port charge" for a seven-night cruise has become, in some cases, a $225 NCF for agents, and that trend is unfolding at the same time that cruise prices are falling.
In October 1993, inside staterooms aboard the Majesty of the Seas, booked well in advance, were priced at about $1,000 with $50 in port charges. Allowing for inflation, it would take $1,618 to buy that same cruise in 2013.
And if an inside stateroom did cost that much today, I likely wouldn't be writing this column.
In fact, an inside stateroom on Allure of the Seas for October is priced at $754, of which $225 is NCF. The result is that instead of an inflation-adjusted commission of about $240, an agent will earn less than $80 today.
Putting NCFs aside, allow me to address a policy I have never been able to understand.
Cruise lines have always used a tier structure based on dollar volume of sales or passenger count to determine override commission payments above a base of 10%. As cruising became increasingly popular and more and more ships were added to a line's fleet, a curious thing happened. Cruise lines decided that since there was more capacity to be sold, they should also increase the sales volume required to maintain a given override level. In one case, it all but doubled overnight.
Somehow, it seemed, the cost for an agent to market, make a sale and handle a booking had magically gone down simply because the cruise lines suddenly had more capacity to sell.
It's true that productivity improvements have enabled astute agency owners to reduce costs by making data entry and the mechanics of the booking process more efficient.
But the reality is that while cruise lines tell us they need sales associates who can serve as a font of information for their products, those associates simply can't find the extra time needed to gather and act on all the information needed to make an informed recommendation and answer the multitude of questions that always arise.
The profitability squeeze has become intense for some because ever greater automation isn't the solution. In the end, it takes time, and time is money, and the money has to increase.
Many agencies have dealt with the situation by simply changing their business model by selling higher-profit land packages, river cruises and resorts while de-emphasizing traditional cruise sales. I would think that a prolonged trend in that directions would be of concern to most cruise lines.
It might be argued that if the compensation travel retailers get from cruise sales were really all that bad, there wouldn't be retailers who compete for sales by giving back as much as 10% of the cost of the cruise to the client in the form of onboard credit and other inducements.
In other cases, an agency might realize a significant portion of its income from website advertising sales, making it less sensitive to absolute commission amounts.
Cruise lines tell us -- some much more than others -- that traditional travel sellers continue to be an important revenue channel for their businesses. If that is really the case, it's time that cruise lines, perhaps through CLIA, sat down with a cross section of retailers, large and small, and revisited agent compensation.
Azamara Club Cruises recently announced an initiative with Virtuoso that rewards agencies that sell higher value accommodations. It has met with mixed reviews, to say the least.
That reception notwithstanding, the very nature of the initiative is an indication that there are ways to resolve this dilemma in a manner that recognizes and rewards travel retailers who act as true sales associates.
Cruise lines that sincerely want to see the retail channel survive and thrive will step up and address the matter now, not a year from now.
Charlie and Sherrie Funk, inducted into the CLIA Hall of Fame in 2012, own Just Cruisin' Plus in Brentwood, Tenn.