旅行社和巡航线向前看,Clia Cruise 360
经过丹尼尔·麦卡锡(Daniel McCarthy)/
Business is strong, travel agents are thriving, and 2018 is off to an amazing start. That was the message from cruise line executives gathered in Ft. Lauderdale this week for the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) Cruise 360 annual conference.
“我们有几年的欧洲柔软了……加勒比海仍然柔软……我在夜间保持清醒的想法,想到进入这个市场的产品数量,但业务感觉不错,”共同所有人和所有者Kimberly Wilson Wetty说。Valerie Wilson Travel的联合主席。
In a panel moderated by Wilson Wetty — and including Holland America Line’s Orlando Ashford, Royal Caribbean’s Michael Bayley, Celebrity Cruises’ Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, Cunard's Josh Leibowitz, and MSC Cruises’ Rick Sasso — all expressed optimism for the year ahead and offered agents some words of advice on how to deal with a cruise industry that is rapidly filling with new brands and products.
品牌背后的“为什么”
One thing that could make agents better advisors for their clients and better partners for the lines is understanding what makes one line different from the rest.
“For many years, Celebrity has tried to carve out a place that we could uniquely own with a modern luxury platform,” Lutoff-Perlo said.
Celebrity has continued to pursue that goal withits newest launch, Celebrity Edge, which is set to officially debut at the end of 2018. The purpose behind the design and layout of Edge — which features more dining choices than ever and a live music area, meeting space, and an open-air dining venue on a moving platform dubbed the Magic Carpet — was to be uniquely Celebrity.
她补充说:“我们有责任确保我们继续做巩固我们之间差异化的事情……我最大的挫败感是行业中发生的复制。”
在服役145年之后,荷兰美国认为,其在行业中的地位将继续做在过去一个半世纪左右的事情中取得如此成功的事情,尽管该线路将继续通过。一些合作伙伴关系,例如与O杂志的合作关系。
“Ultimately, we need to make sure we’re building the right product to compete against land-based vacations,” Ashford said.
库纳德(Cunard)甚至在荷兰美国(Holland America)之前已经存在,希望通过创新和适应来继续其成功和行业的遗产,同时还与“我们为什么旅行 - 旅行的含义”保持联系,乔什·莱博维茨(Josh Leibowitz)库纳德北美副总裁。
在另一端,在过去的14年中一直在北美进行了推动,MSC Cruises是另一种咒语。“您听到了这句话,'如果它没有打破,请不要修复它。'MSC Cruises总裁兼首席执行官Rick Sasso说:“如果没有打破,我们就会说“如果没有打破,就会变得更好”。
With 14 ships entering service over the last 14 years and ten more set to come, MSC is busy designing ships that will not only fit in the marketplace now, but will be relevant in the future.
“The types of ships that we’re designing are different platforms to address what we think cruising will be like for the next 20 years,” Sasso said. “We’ve said, let’s just keep making it better.”
The road ahead for agents
MSC may have the most ambitious expansion plan in the industry, but every single line is ready to grow.
According to Cunard’s Leibowitz, last year there were 25 million cruisers around the world; and in the next five years, the industry will need seven million more, most of them from the U.S.
“我们从旅行社那里需要的东西……这是因为您在帮助人们决定他们在度假中的工作中发挥了作用。他说:“有很多人充满我们所有的船只,我们所有的船只都是独一无二的。”“如果您想在未来五年内将业务加倍,那么您就有机会这样做。”
To do so, agents need to convince people who have not dipped a toe in the cruise world to try it.
卢托夫·佩罗(Lutoff-Perlo)从事代理商的职业生涯,然后继续成为地区销售经理,她说她记得人们没有“不像他们需要巡航的开放”的时候。而且她仍然“不敢相信,33年后,人们仍然说:'巡游不适合我。'”
邮轮公司成功在这个增长phase, they will need good agents to bring those first-time clients to ports.
“What we are trying to carve out is that we’ve done everything we believe we can, going after an affluent traveler, with hardware … to get them to look at that ship and say, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m wrong, cruising is for me,’” added Lutoff-Perlo.