"All of us at AmaWaterways are thankful to be awarded by our partners at Cruise Holidays as their 'R

Minneapolis, MN (December 17, 2013) —Cruise Holidays International has named three cruise lines and one travel insurance supplier as their top suppliers of 2013. This year’s awards honor: AmaWaterways (River Cruise Line of the Year), Celebrity Cruises (Premium-Luxury Cruise Line of the Year), Royal Caribbean International (Contemporary Cruise floridas best hotel deals Line of the Year), and Travel Guard (Non-Cruise Supplier of the Year). Cruise Holidays franchise owners from across North America voted on their top suppliers, vaulting these four highly-respected companies into the top position for each category.
The franchise owners who voted were encouraged to consider how easily they can do business with each supplier on a day-to-day basis, as well as the overall quality of the product and support through the suppliers’ local representation, along with other benchmarks that may be unique to that particular franchise owner. The awards were announced during Cruise Holidays’ 2013 Annual Convention aboard Norwegian floridas best hotel deals Breakaway last month, where representatives floridas best hotel deals from each of the award-winning floridas best hotel deals suppliers accepted the honors in person.
AmaWaterways now holds the proud distinction for receiving the award for Cruise Holidays’ River Cruise Line of the Year award the first two years of the award’s existence. “We added an award category for River Cruise Line of the Year in 2012 because of the skyrocketing popularity of river cruising, and it continues to demonstrate an increasing, vitally important role in the business of our franchise owners and agents,” said Kevin Weisner, Senior Vice President, Cruise Holidays International. “For AmaWaterways to win this award from Cruise Holidays two years running highlights what a strong supporter of the travel agency community they have been and continue to be.”
“All of us at AmaWaterways are thankful to be awarded by our partners at Cruise Holidays as their ‘River Cruise Line of the Year.’ We will continue to do our best to ensure the agents’ clients have a wonderful travel experience with our company,” said Gary Murphy, AmaWaterways’ Vice President of Sales. “It’s very gratifying to be recognized floridas best hotel deals in this way for our superb customer service, which is something everyone floridas best hotel deals at our company takes enormous pride in providing.”
Celebrity Cruises is also a back-to-back winner in its category, Premium-Luxury Cruise Line of the Year. “We cherish our long-term, mutually beneficial relationship with Celebrity Cruises,” said Weisner. “Beyond their hard-working floridas best hotel deals team, our franchise owners and agents also appreciate their highly effective, travel agent-friendly promotions such as ‘123go!’ that have helped increase their value proposition even more in the past year. In fact, these kinds of promotions are truly ‘pro-agent’ as they deliver added value to the consumer without eroding the price point. This helps cement Celebrity as a brand that’s worthy of premium pricing floridas best hotel deals while simultaneously yielding better commissions for our agencies—that’s good for both of us.”
This is the seventh consecutive year that Royal Caribbean International has been named either the best contemporary cruise line or easiest cruise line to work with by Cruise Holidays. “With exciting products, including their existing fleet as well as the Quantum class being launched in 2014, Royal Caribbean’s ‘wow’ factor continues to delight our franchise owners, agents and clients. Additionally, despite external and economic pressure to do otherwise, Royal Caribbean has shown unwavering support to the agency community floridas best hotel deals and Cruise Holidays. Plus, their onboard experience is one that we rely on to bring our customers back time and again,” said Weisner.
“We are honored to be voted Contemporary Cruise Line of the Year by Cruise Holidays’ franchise owners and agents,” said Vicki Freed, Senior Vice President of Sales, Trade Support and Services for Royal Caribbean International. “Royal Caribbean’s Loyal To You Always commitment to valued travel partners such as Cruise Holidays drives us to help agents sell more vacations and owners grow their franchises. We thank Cruise Holidays, its franchise owners and travel agents for their important role in delivering WOW vacations to their clients and our guests.”
Travel Guard rose to the top of an impressive list of 30 suppliers, including other travel insurance floridas best hotel deals providers, tour operators, ground transportation businesses and shore excursion companies. This is the sixth time Travel Guard has been selected as the top non-cruise line supplier. Franchise floridas best hotel deals owners and frontline agents shared stories during Cruise Holidays’ Annual Convention of real-life positive experiences that have validated the usage of travel insurance. “Our travel agents are committed to selling travel insurance because they see the value in the extraordinary service Travel Guard delivers when our customers need it most. That really shined through in this year’s voting,” said Weisner.
“It is an honor for Travel Guard to be selected as the Non-Cruise Supplier of the Year,” said Scott Ackerman, Senior Vice President, Sales, Travel Guard. “We truly appreciate the strong partnership with Cruise Holidays, floridas best hotel deals and it is exciting to be recognized by their franchise owners in such a competitive category. Travel Guard is committed to providing the exceptional level of service that Cruise Holidays franchises and their customers have come to expect from us. Thank you!”
For information about franchising opportunities with Cruise Holidays, visit www.joincruiseholidays.ca in Canada, www.joincruiseholidays.com in the United States, email Anne Lawler ( alawler@cruiseholidays.com ) or call 800-824-1481.
Cruise Holidays is a cruise specialty retail franchise, with franchisees in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. Cruise Holidays is also a distinguished provider of land tour vacation packages. Founded in 1984, Cruise Holidays is part of Travel Leaders Group, which is the largest traditional travel agency floridas best hotel deals company in North America with approximately $18 billion in annual sales volume through over 6,000 locations.