Carol Marlow, P&O UK’s managing director, says that the P&O UK based ships and World Voyages differ markedly from the local Australian fleet.
“Both the ships and the onboard offering are quite different” she said.
Recently the company launched a programme to better definite its product
The definition, she said, rests on three pillars, the first of which is the “British-ness” of the experience. “Our product and our ships offer passengers a mix of contemporary and traditional British tastes and experiences,” she said.
The second pillar uses the theme ‘The Trusted Cruise Experts’.
“We are the original cruise line,” Marlow said. “Arthur Anderson’s Peninsula Stream Navigation Company, from which we trace our roots, started in the mid 1830s, so we can claim to be the experts,”
Marlow said that the cruise line celebrates and embraces life at sea.
“Some of our competitors, and they do it extremely well, operate floating resorts, we don’t,” she said. “We offer holidays on ships with a nautical feel: you see the officers around the ships and the captain hosting a table at dinner,” she added.
The third pillar is providing guests with the holiday of a lifetime every time they travel.
“Put those three things together and that’s what P&O Cruises World Voyages is all about. It’s a different feel from P&O Australia, which does a great job, but in a different style,” she said.
P&O Cruises World Cruising expects to roll out a new online training academy in 2011 in both Britain and Australia to strengthen agent’s knowledge.
