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Bob Levinstein is the CEO of CruiseCompete and CEO of Compete Ventures. He’s also the founder of ExpertTravelAnswers.com. Levinstein founded NationJob, which was one of the first online job search engines in the 90s. Levinstein tells us about Cruise Compete and Resort Compete, and how both sites help travelers find the best vacation packages. He also explains the the most popular consumer trends in cruising. Levinstein then discusses how publishers can effectively utilize ExpertTravelAnswers.com.

Levinstein co-founded CruiseCompete.com in 2003 and continues to serve as its CEO. Since that time, registered users have received over 10 million quotes from the site’s 300+ travel-agency members. CruiseCompete took top honors in Travel + Leisure Magazine’s “Top 60 Best Apps and Websites for Travelers” (September 2012) with an honorable mention. The Wall Street Journal praised CruiseCompete as “Best Cruise Travel Site,” The New York Times says, “… independent travel agents compete to offer you the best deal,” and follows similar praise from Travel + Leisure, Kiplinger’s and The Washington Post. The Street says, “Score luxury cruises at bargain prices.”

Levinstein has been with working with electronic exchange concepts since 1988, when he co-founded National Employment Wire Service Corporation in California. This company became NationJob, Inc., one of the first online job websites in 1995. Clients have included Bechtel, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Boeing Aerospace, Dow Corning, Ford Motor Company, the Mayo Clinic, Michelin, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and many other household names.

He was the first to implement such now-common employment website features as automatically e-mailing out new jobs to job seekers based on stored search criteria and generating niche employment sites from a master general database. Levinstein served as President and COO of NationJob until April of 2007, and remains a member of its Board of Directors.

Levinstein holds a BA in Organizational Behavior from Stanford University and has completed two Ironman triathlons.

Visit Cruise Compete at www.cruisecompete.com.

Visit Resort Compete at www.ResortCompete.com.

Find out more about Compete Ventures at www.competeventures.com.

ANNOUNCER: Welcome to the JetSetter Show, where we explore lifestyle-friendly destinations worldwide. Enjoy and learn from a variety of experts on topics ranging from upscale travel at wholesale prices, to retiring overseas, to global real estate and business opportunities, to tax havens and expatriate opportunities. You’ll get great ideas on unique cultures, causes, and cruise vacations. Whether you’re wealthy or just want to live a wealthy lifestyle, the JetSetter Show is for you. Here’s your host, Jason Hartman.

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[MUSIC]

JASON HARTMAN: It’s my pleasure to welcome Bob Levinstein! He is CEO of CruiseCompete, and this is a very unique business model that allows consumers to shop for the best cruise deal, and I’m looking forward to hearing more about it. Bob, welcome. How are you?

BOB LEVINSTEIN: I am doing very well, Jason. Thanks for having me.

JASON HARTMAN: Well good, good. Since we do talk about travel, I always like to give our listeners a sense of geography; where are you located?

BOB LEVINSTEIN: I am actually located in Des Moines, Iowa, about as far as you can get from a cruise port. When I go to travel conferences, I am always the person who is furthest from the ocean.

JASON HARTMAN: [LAUGHTER]. That’s funny. Well, let’s not have it be that way for our listeners. So, tell us about CruiseCompete. What inspired the idea?

BOB LEVINSTEIN: Well, you know, I had taken a number of cruises, and what I had learned in shopping around for them and being on the boards where people discuss things, is that the same cabin on the exact same ship—you might be able to get for a different rate, for a lower price, or you might be able to get additional benefits and amenities, like onboard credit, or a cabin upgrade, or even something as simple as a bottle of champagne in your cabin; it all depends on which travel agency you book with. And at the time, I was running another company called the NationJob, which was one of the first online job listing services. And it just really occurred to me that it was really a very similar type of application, to be able to, you know, one company was about people want to find jobs, and they go on, and they can search to find them. Another company, people want to be matched with travel agencies to find good deals on cruises. So, with a couple of partners, launched CruiseCompete back in 2003, and we just had our 10 year anniversary, and more than 11 million quotes have gone through the site in that amount of time.

JASON HARTMAN: And so, you were saying before we started recording that these are all through travel agencies, rather than directly through the cruise lines. Now, why is that?

BOB LEVINSTEIN: Well, you’re always gonna get a better deal booking with an agency than booking directly with the line. The cruise line has a lot of incentive—the travel agents actually sell anywhere from 70 to 95% of the cruise line’s inventory. They’re not selling directly, for the most part. In fact, there are even a couple lines that will not sell directly at all, a couple smaller ones. And depending on the relationship they have with the agency, whether or not they have group space reserved, just how smart they are about the codes and, you know, the fare codes and coupons and ways to get you deals, the travel agency—the travel agents can get you more for your money.

JASON HARTMAN: Now, isn’t that a little—don’t we have to be a little counterintuitive there? Because one would think, let’s disintermediate the travel agent, and save the commission. They’re probably only getting maybe what, 5% or something, right?

BOB LEVINSTEIN: Well, travel agency commissions are actually around 15%.

JASON HARTMAN: Oh, 15% for cruises, okay.

BOB LEVINSTEIN: And it can go up from there, depending on things like overrides, or what they call coop advertising. But, cruising—it’s a much more complex travel to buy than just booking a hotel room. There’s a lot more to understand, and the guidance of the travel agent really means a lot to a lot of people.

JASON HARTMAN: Mhmm. Okay, fair enough, fair enough. And you know, but, it’s complicated to book multi-leg airplane trips too, right? I guess the cruise is just even more complicated than that, right?

BOB LEVINSTEIN: Well, you really have to have more understanding of the market, and when you have a growing market like the cruise business, you constantly have to bring new people in. If you’re on your third cruise, your fifth cruise, your tenth cruise, you could probably know enough to make most of the decisions yourself. But it’s really nice to have somebody who’s been trained, who’s been on different lines, and can really—has been around the industry and can really give you some good advice.

JASON HARTMAN: Okay, good, good. Okay, well, you know, I certainly see the need for travel experts and agents and so forth, so I’m not doubting that.

BOB LEVINSTEIN: Well, and the cruise lines do too. So that’s why they give them the opportunity to offer some better rates. And so, the way our site works is, as a consumer, you come in, you have