CruiseLineFans applauds the loosening of social media policies at major cruise lines for their travel agents and cruise distributors.

(TRAVPR.COM) UNITED KINGDOM – 12th March 2010 - Since late 2009, the travel industry has been following a story regarding Carnival Cruise Lines and their initial ban on travel agents, agencies, and cruise specialists from using CCL trademarks with out prior authorization. A fury of web-based criticism regarding this narrowing of company policy resulted and Carnival Cruise Lines pledged to re-examine the issue and their stance on the matter.

In late February 2010, Carnival Cruise Lines officially amended their policy for travel agents to permit the use of terms relating to Carnival Cruise Lines on individual social media accounts such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace. Previously hamstrung travel agents are now able to openly and actively engage their customer base with the top selling cruise vacation product in the industry without fear of penalty or punishment, or exclusion.

The Carnival Cruise Social Media Policy saga has been tracked at CruiseLineFans with eager anticipation of a positive resolution. Carnival Cruise Lines’ intent in constructing such a policy was motivated by desire to present a unified brand presence and “to provide the cleanest, straight path to the most comprehensive Carnival content available, which is on Carnival.com.”, according to Carnival spokesperson Jennifer De La Cruz.

The social media networks of Twitter and Facebook present a wealth of resources relating to ship reviews, cruise reviews and cruise deals , for prospective cruise buyers to use in making an informed vacation investment. Limitations to the breadth of use travel agents are allowed to employ would only serve to discourage distributors from offering their customers all the available cruise vacation deals. The loosening of Carnival Cruise Lines social media policy should serve not only the travel agent and the cruise line well, but also the experienced and new cruise passenger.

Prospective cruise passengers are encouraged to consult online cruise review sites like CruiseLineFans, as well as the long list of travel and cruise bloggers, journalists and travel experts that are publishing online.

Alex Saint, CEO of CruiseLineFans believes, “Carnival Cruise Lines has set an industry-wide example for social media policy best practice and we hope our readers are sure to connect with Carnival Cruise Lines, their distributing travel agents and CruiseLineFans on social network such as Twitter and Facebook.”

CruiseLineFans (http://www.cruiselinefans.com) is the fastest growing, most friendly and informative cruise travel forum on the Web. CruiseLineFans plays host to forums dedicated to this discussion of popular cruise lines such as Royal Caribbean, Carnival, Norwegian and many others. Images galleries, polls, roll calls, special cruise deals, cruise and ship reviews, as well as off topic discussion is also available. The forum boasts in excess of 22,000 members, over 38,000 threads, and 1.5 million posts.

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