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Princess President says Aus is doing well.
On a visit to Australia last week in a briefing with the trade press, Princess Cruises President and CEO Alan Buckelew said that Princess sales in Australia were in line with his expectations and were particularly good when considering Princess had increased capacity by over 300%, with all vessels sailing pretty well full.
Contrary to industry reports, he said Melbourne was performing particularly well and with the full time deployment of Dawn Princess to the Australian waters later this year joining the Sun Princess, he did not expect that to change, expressing total confidence in the Australian cruise market, adding that Dawn Princess represents the biggest investment ever made in the Australian cruising market by an international cruise line and that they expected her to be dedicated to the local rather than inbound market.
Buckelew said that he is confident Australia will deliver with bookings for 2008 and 2009 cruises already very promising and the two premium ships the largest to sail from Australia year round, visiting more destinations than any other cruise line, contributing more than $40 million per annum to the Australian economy.
Buckelew did express his concern regarding agent training and that he felt that Princess had not done enough in that regard, but that this issue would be corrected shortly through a Princess agent training programme, modelled on their highly successful programme in the USA.
He said, “We need to keep the Carnival brands separate in the travel agent’s minds and most travel agents have never experienced a Princess cruiseâ€.
He added, that in 2007 Carnival Australia, across all of its brands, had paid about A$33 million in commissions, with an expected A$50 million to be paid in 2008 to Australian travel agents, stressing that this made Carnival a very significant player in the Australian travel business.
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