Founded 1982 | ||
 | ||
Landry & Kling, Inc. is an American company specializing in group cruise travel based in Miami, Florida. They promote and sell the concept of using cruise ships for corporate meetings, travel incentives and large scale events, often chartering entire ships for this purpose. Landry & Kling employs a full time staff of ten, with additional project staff as needed. In 2014, the company booked $59 million in gross sales, representing 480,000 cruise ship passenger nights.
Contents
History
Landry & Kling Inc. was founded in New York City in 1982 by former cruise line executives Joyce Landry and Jo Kling, who shared a vision to become the first resource for business meetings on ships. The company relocated to Miami, Florida in 1988.
The partners sold Landry & Kling Inc. to publicly traded Travel Services International in 1998, later rebranded to MyTravel Group. The owners stayed on and in 2005 they re-purchased the company from then-owners National Leisure Group.
Landry & Kling Inc., dba Landry & Kling Events at Sea, is majority-owned, controlled, operated, and managed by women, qualifying the company as a minority-owned business.
In 2009, Landry & Kling introduced Seasite.com, the first web portal dedicated to the corporate & incentive cruise market, re-engineering the group quote process online with electronic search tools.
Co-founders Joyce Landry & Jo Kling are cruise industry spokespeople who have been regularly interviewed and quoted for over three decades in domestic and international media including The New York Times, Money, TIME,The Economist, Travel + Leisure, Vogue, and many trade publications in the meetings industry. They have appeared twice on NBC’s The Today Show. As speakers, seminar leaders, columnists and cruise line advisory board members, they influenced the growth of the corporate cruise market, which resulted in their induction into the cruise industry’s Hall of Fame in 2009.
Services
Landry & Kling provides site selection for meetings at sea, incentive cruise groups and full ship charters as well as complete program planning services and onboard execution. Clients include blue-chip companies such as Aflac, Harley-Davidson, Land O'Lakes, and MetLife, privately held organizations and theme cruise organizers, as well as HelmsBriscoe, the global meetings procurement company, for whom they provide all cruise related services under the “HB Cruises” private label brand. "Landry & Kling's long-term specialization in the cruise industry has given them a knowledge base and connections that allow them to customize cruise solutions for their clients".
Incentive cruises
At the time the company was founded, cruise lines did not have cruise incentive departments, and corporations did not typically think of cruises as travel incentive rewards. TravelMarket says the firm is " practically synonymous with cruise incentives".
Cruise ship charters
Landry & Kling originated the concept of using cruise ships as “floating hotels” chartered to provide supplemental housing dockside during city wide events, such as the 2005 Super Bowl in Jacksonville, Florida.
They also facilitated other dockside charter projects for the American Heart Association 1996 (New Orleans), Relief housing after Hurricane Katrina 2005 (Mobile, AL), Cricket World Cup 2007 (West Indies); Fifth Summit of the Americas 2009 (Trinidad), and the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio.
Landry & Kling is one of the country’s leading cruise ship charter consultants, not only for corporate use, but also for leisure themed charters, such as Rock Legends Cruise and “It’s the Ship”, Asia’s largest music festival at sea. Landry & Kling is the only company recommended as cruise charter specialists in Berlitz Cruising & Cruise Ships annually, from 2008 to 2015.
Landry & Kling claims to have chartered more cruise ships than any other entity in the world.
Recognition
1987: Landry & Kling introduced dockside cruise ship charters for the DECworld ’87 tradeshow in Boston to serve as “floating hotels” for more than 25,000 visitors.
2004: Joyce Landry authored a chapter in The Complete 21st Century Travel & Hospitality Marketing Handbook, “Staying ahead of the curve, to avoid getting run over”.
2005: Corporate Meetings & Incentive Magazine cited the 1982 founding of Landry & Kling as one of the “Top 25 Meeting Industry Milestones” in their special 25th Anniversary Issue
2006 Landry and Kling were named among the 10 Women Leaders who are making a difference in the meetings industry by Incentive Magazine.
2006: Landry & Kling achieved WBENC Certification (Women’s Business Enterprise National Council), and was named #156 among the top 500 Women-owned businesses in the U.S. by DiversityBusiness.com in 2007.
2009: Josephine Kling and Joyce Landry, founders of Landry & Kling, Inc., were inducted into the CLIA (Cruise Lines International Association) Hall of Fame 2009, hailed as “visionaries who led the way in seagoing corporate meetings and incentives.”
2009: Landry & Kling named among “Top 50 Women-Led Businesses in Florida”, ranking #13 in the state.
2011: Royal Caribbean International recognized Landry & Kling as its Partner of the Year for Corporate & Incentive groups.
2013: Landry & Kling was awarded Women’s Business Enterprise Star award by WBENC.