ABOUT US
WHAT IS THE CRUISE RETAIL ACADEMY?
We are a recruitment, training and support business for the cruise industry dedicated to onboard revenue. We offer free membership to onboard professionals providing access to training, news, blogs, jobs, networking and much more. We welcome onboard cruise professionals from across all operators, all positions, and all experience levels (new and existing).
Our aim is to build a network that is active, positive, growing and dynamic. Each week we send out our 'Academy Weekly' newsletter with the latest news and views from the cruise retail industry to keep you connected.
Cruise Retail Academy is not only a training and recruitment platform, it will be also a great way to connect the sector together. You will join over 9000+ members from across the oceans. Visit our Testimonials page to see what other members think about us, we have nothing to hide!
Trust us on your journey. We will never charge you any fees for recruitment, and the majority of all the training we provide is for free. Please read our reviews on Trustpilot to see what CRA members think about what we have to offer.
WHO ARE WE?
OUR VISION
We are driven to build long lasting talent partnerships built from trust. We can provide added-value specific recruitment support and training services where it is needed, using new technology and a personalized human touch to find and empower a new generation of cruise professionals to be a success in our industry.
We were founded in June 2024 but the actual inspiration for the Cruise Retail Academy started with the global pandemic of 2020 and the shutdown of the cruise industry. During this time, most onboard retail professionals faced real uncertainty, true financial hardship and forced separation from the job they loved and the teams they loved being part of.
During this dark time however, there was a source of illumination. The passion, enthusiasm and belief in a brighter future never wavered from the global family of "shoppies". They wanted to develop their leadership, their career and their skills no matter what was against them. Their true determination and hope was amazing and humbling to witness. And it planted a seed with me.
How can we nurture this spirit and support these amazing professionals to really grow to be the leaders they aspired to be? Whilst the industry has real challenges in fragmentation, consistency and connecting all professionals with opportunities, the attitude across the onboard cruise retail sector is one of the best you can see across all operators, with real effort and sincerity across every ship across the world.
As I have been a senior global leader in the cruise retail industry for 10 years, I understand these complexities and also opportunities better than nearly anyone. Therefore, I will try my best to help and guide cruise retail professionals to confidently and individually improve their skills, opportunities and experiences.
Our goal is to find, support and mentor the best talent in the industry.
Let's sail together!
OUR VALUES
ILLUMINATING YOUR RETAIL WORLD
Our tagline and our logo is also one of our values. We are a bright light. Our business is built around positive success, therefore we will do our utmost to provide our members a continually illuminating place to be. We will ensure that content, input and our tone are optimistic and forward looking.
"SHOPPIES" CHAMPION
Cruise retail success comes from the people on the shop floor. Too often forgotten, so we want to be a strong support network for the thousands of amazing 'shoppies' (onboard professionals) working in this industry. As we passionately believe in people development, we put this as our core value and built the business from it. We believe in an approach which is built from passion, enthusiasm and dedication to our sector. Our goal is to do our best to provide you with the value that we know you need, in the right time frame, and with the right content!
TRUST IS EVERYTHING
We want you to trust us to deliver the best for you. We understand completely that cruise retail is a competitive field. We will provide you with a honest, bespoke and professional solution that is not at any dis-advantage to others in the sector. We commit to providing a trustworthy, dedicated resource and one which is as good as we can build for your needs.
LONG-TERM TALENT PARTNERS
We would love to work with a long-term talent partnership mentality. And therefore we will do our best to provide to you an ongoing working relationship built from mutual understanding, dedicated commitment and honest dialogue.
OUR STRATEGY
RECRUITMENT
We are dedicated to providing the widest choice of cruise retail and onboard revenue jobs in the industry. Our focus will be solely on retail, art, photo, spa, casino, future cruise and excursions.
We offer best-in-class reach for job vacancies, with over 16,000 website visits per month, and an ever expanding and specialised CRM database of interested professionals. We follow industry trends to ensure we offer both value for money but also long term talent partnerships built from trust.
TRAINING
We provide best-in-class cruise retail and onboard revenue training to empower new to cruise professionals to graduate before they embark. We offer over 50 free training courses through our E-Academy. We also offer bespoke courses designed specifically for operators to use as part of their onboarding journey. We work with our brand training partners frntlne to provide a unique digital learning journey for operators and brands to connect together to deliver effective solutions designed to build confidence and success. We also provide useful links to partner training websites to further professional learning opportunities for cruise retail professionals.
SUPPORT
We provide unique support to brands and operators with our CRA+ program. We have over 50 ex-cruise professionals located across the world to be able to get onboard cruise ships where and when needed. Our freelancers are able to support cost effectively and efficiently with brand training, auditing, merchandising, mystery shopping, sales and onboard activations. Learn more about CRA+ on our dedicated page.
THE STORY OF OUR LOGO
Our logos for Cruise Retail Academy and for #Shoppies are both a tribute to our tagline 'illuminate your retail world'.
The inspiration came from the lightbulb, the source of inspiration and ideas. From there we connected the logo the the idea of facets and angles. The triangles represent the trinity of our industry, the individual, the brand and the operators working together to create success. The colours of green and blue represent the values of success and the ocean. And bringing it all together is the globe representing the fact that we are here to support cruise professionals from around the world. The logo is dynamic, you will see it used in different ways and methods across different media which represent how changing and evolving cruise retailing really is. The logo was designed by UK creative professional, Matt Wingfield. Please check out his website!
CONTACT US
Ready to work together or just want to say hi? Get in touch in the way that works best for you.
Email: info@cruiseretailacademy.com
or complete the form and we’ll get back to you ASAP.
