Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association (FCCA)

On May 16th, the FCCA’s Vice President, Adam Ceserano, traveled to Santa Marta, Colombia to begin the FCCA Outreach Program. Adam directed a course designed to teach the cruise industry fundamentals of the L.A.S.T. program. Listen, apologize, solve and thank, as well as much more to the local taxi drivers, tourism guides and the local government.

In addition to familiarizing the attendees to different customer service techniques, the course uses videos and workbooks to provide hands-on, entertaining instruction showing how to work with many different types of guests. Focusing on courtesy and professionalism, marketing, rules, and safety, it teaches them how to interact with their cruise passengers.

The district administration highlights that Proexport, the port of Santa Marta, and the FCCA makes this effort because they are interested in making a significant contribution to the improvement of quality in the hosting of tourists, and makes Santa Marta stronger as a destination, according to Fidel Vargas, Secretary of Tourism of Santa Marta “Understanding customer needs increases satisfaction, leading to return visitors. Even at the smallest scale it becomes possible to increase tourism, something that the FCCA aims to show, while providing the know-how”.

Understanding the cruise industry and its dynamics is vital in today’s tourism mix, especially in view of the competition that the Caribbean tourism faces from other regions of the world. The FCCA has developed a series of workshops that are available to the Caribbean, and Latin America, utilizing our research and information capabilities.

The FCCA Training workshops provide the industry’s destination partners with valuable information regarding today’s cruise passengers: their wants, needs and habits; enabling governments and business to maximize the impact of cruise tourism in their country.

For more information the FCCA’s training programs please contact Adam Ceserano at (954) 441-8881 or adam@f-cca.com.

Created in 1972, the FCCA is a not-for-profit trade organization that provides a forum for discussion on tourism development, ports, safety, security, and other cruise industry issues and builds bilateral relationships with destinations’ private and public sectors. By fostering an understanding of the cruise industry and its operating practices, the FCCA works with governments, ports and private sector representatives to maximize cruise passenger, crew and cruise line spending, as well as enhance the destination experience and increase the amount of cruise passengers returning as stay-over visitors. For more information, visit F-CCA.com and @FCCAupdates on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.