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Agents urged to sell cruises as ‘holidays’
The cruise industry needs stop talking about cruise and start talking about holidays if it wants to appeal to more travellers.
Speaking at the Cruise Lines International Association’s Cruise Forum, its chairman Lynn Narraway questioned whether it was time to drop maritime terms that could be off-putting to customers.
She highlighted that terms such as port, starboard, tonnage and dining times were common parlance, adding: "Why are we still using maritime language and not holiday language?"
"We need to try talking about destinations, service, ambience and amenities and not mention cruise until the end."
And she urged agents to ‘paint a picture’ of the holiday in ways they thought clients would respond to.
Carnival UK chairman David Dingle said the increasing segmentation of the market meant the industry could offer an increasingly refined product to customers – one which they would be willing to pay more for.
"The finer the segment, the better the margin," he added.
Dingle predicted that while 2016 would not see further capacity increases in the ex-UK cruise market, there was room to increase prices.
"I’m not talking about strategic pricing, but across the board, so lines don’t need to sell their last cabins at a low prices," he said.
Dingle said P&O Cruises, which launched its new ship Britannia earlier this year, was already considering a further vessel.
But he said there are currently no firm plans and he predicted this would not happen within the next five years.
But, on a more general note, he said the design of future ships would be driven by the advent of new different fuels that cruise companies are having to use.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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