| Costa adds first new local PSAs

Six additional agencies have
been appointed as Preferred
Sales Agents for Costa
Cruises – with more to come.
COSTA CROCIERE HAS CONFIRMED THE AGENCIES
that will replace Carnival Australia’s
Complete Cruise Solution as its preferred
sales agents in the region.
The six new PSAs are Best Cruises,
Creative Cruising, SevenOceans, Cruise Mart
and Cruiseco in Australia and Cruise World in
New Zealand.
Existing PSAs, which are continuing service
for Costa, include CruiseAgents (ecruising),
Harvey’s Choice Holidays, China Travel
Service, New Horizons Holidays (WA) and
Asia Escapes Holidays (WA).
Director of Cruise World, Joe O’Sullivan,
told CW that as the first Costa PSA ever
appointed in New Zealand, the company
expects the new agreement will build the
line’s brand awareness.
“We have dealt with Costa for about 12
years so we hope these changes mean the
focus will be a lot stronger here,” he said.
“To have Costa Deliziosa coming here in
February is great for its profile and will give
us the opportunity to showcase how good the
ships are.”
In Australia, founder and chairman of
CruiseAgents, Brett Dudley, said that the
decision by Costa and Carnival to finalise its
PSA agreement would allow agents to get
more instantaneous responses for their
clients through his company’s “state-of-theart”
electronic facilities.
He said Costa’s decision to use multiple
sales agents would allow high-achiever
agents ready access to cruiseagents.travel’s
sophisticated ticketing systems.
Meanwhile, Dario Rustico, sales and
marketing director, Pacific Asia operations,
Costa Cruises, confirmed overnight that more
PSAs were set to come onboard.
“The list is going to be completed during
the next few weeks – we have several ones
that are new,” he said.