As a follow on from my last post about the transport industry which talked about bus companies and airlines moving training programs online, I’ve now found a luxury cruise company doing something similar.

Princess Cruises have been making waves (excuse the pun) by becoming the first company of their kind to offer a fully comprehensive range of online tools to help their agents become experts at what they do. As part of their collection of online tools which range from reporting tools to online booking engines, they have long had an online training program called the Princess Academy which has “hosted more participants than any cruise curriculum in the industry”.

The cruise line’s acclaimed training program is not just used for new staff coming in to a role with Princess. It is used to regularly deliver on-going courses that offer valuable sales training and product knowledge to give employees ways to improve their performance, make more commission and give them access to further bonus incentives. The more training a staff member completes, the faster they progress up through the ranks earning perks and valuable bonuses as they go, culminating in a free ‘graduation’ cruise. They even dare to say their courses are supposed to be fun! These guys understand the real value of training to their business and it has earned them a reputation as one of the premiere cruise lines in the world.

The value of training was summed up nicely by someone in a LinkedIn group the other day who pointed out a very simple truth: