Land vacation sales spiked at Dream Vacations and CruiseOne during the pandemic and they continue to grow, so much so that someone has been appointed to manage it.
Sean Tolkin has been named vice president of land strategy and network performance. He will focus on developing and executing the network’s land strategy. Tolkin, most recently World Travel Holdings’ senior vice president of customer experience for the direct-to-consumer division, brings more than a decade of experience in the industry to his new role.
Dream Vacations and CruiseOne said land sales are up more than 100% from 2019 and up 26% from 2022.
While the franchise network said it is “doubling down on its commitment to enhance its land vacation resources for its network,” Dream Vacations and CruiseOne remain a “powerhouse in cruise sales.”
“Cruises are still very much core to what we sell as a network,” said Drew Daly, senior vice president and general manager of Dream Vacations and CruiseOne. “We have heard from the cruise lines that generating new-to-cruise customers is essential for the business. We believe that this strategy will strengthen our ability to source new-to-cruise customers by expanding our customer base through land-based vacations initially.”
CruiseOne and Dream Vacations are offering franchisees more learning and familiarization trips for land vacations and a commitment to more promotions and incentives.
Dream Vacations and CruiseOne began to diversify their leisure travel bookings before the pandemic. In 2016, the company introduced the Dream Vacations brand to better reflect the fact that its franchisees sell more than just cruises. But land sales exploded during the pandemic, when the cruise industry was dormant for more than a year and consumers flocked to land vacations, in particular all-inclusive resorts.