Thread: Carnival Cruise Line Censoring Social Media

the gun is loaded .. now lets see who gets shot in the foot

Beverly is right, Carnival used to be a dream to work with and made it very easy for agents to book groups. Now it seems that they are changing their approach big time.

One of the few reasons I considered booking Carnival groups when I was doing the travel agent thing was because they were so easy to work with.

Questions for the travel agents then: 1) How often does a novice cruiser-to-be come to you with misconceptions about which cruise to take based on what they've read on the Internet, what they've seen on the news, etc.?

2) In the cases in which a novice c-t-b comes in and is seeking complete guidance from you (doesn't have a clue what to book), do you tend to try to influence the decision based on how easy a cruiseline is to work with?

Here's an update to this social media story and Carnival Cruise Lines.

In a truly forward thinking decision, (in my opinion) Carnival Cruise Lines has lifted the ban on usage of its trademarks by travel agents and cruise specialists on sites like Twitter and Facebook.

You can read more about the ban lift here :

Twitter Ban Lifted by Carnival Cruises - In Transit Blog - NYTimes.com, but here is the basic gist:

Carnival Cruise Lines has reversed a rule that sought to prevent travel agents from mentioning the company’s name or its trademarks on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

The social media policy was first reported by the travel tech Web site Tnooz last December. Under the old restrictions, nobody in the travel industry would be legally allowed to blog, tweet or post online content about Carnival – its cruises, its corporate practices – without authorization from the company.

After a few travel blogs raised hackles over the company’s gag rule, the company amended the rule and pulled the restrictive language last month.

“The wording was very overreaching and did not reflect the intent of what we wanted in there,” said Jennifer de la Cruz, a Carnival spokeswoman.

The reason the social-media rule was put into place, she added, was to prevent third-party travel agents from misrepresenting themselves to customers as Carnival salespeople and offering unauthorized discounts.

“It was really simply about poorly written language that needed to be fixed,” said Ms. de la Cruz said.

Here's the new language:

Here’s the new policy:
“Travel Agency may use Carnival’s Property in Social Media Websites (as defined below) for the purposes of communicating information about Carnival, subject to the requirements of the Policy. Travel Agency may not use Carnival’s Property, anything substantially similar to Carnival’s Property, or Typos in any username, account name, profile name, screen name, or similar for any Social Media Website or display or undertake any other activity which may confuse consumers as to whether Travel Agency is acting on behalf of Carnival or is endorsed by Carnival. The following are considered Social Media Websites: social networking websites (including by example, but not limited to, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.), blogging and community websites (including by example, but not limited to BlogSpot.com, Wordpress.com, etc.), Video Websites (including by example, but not limited to YouTube, etc.), or any other website operated by a third party, directly or indirectly controlled or posted by Travel Agency (“Social Media Website”).”

Want to download the whole Carnival Cruise Lines Travel Agent Policy:

https://www.bookccl.com/pdf/travelagencypolicy10.pdf