Carnival hosted some of its top-selling agents at an event on Carnival Breeze in Miami. Hollie-Rae Merrick reports
Europe withdrawal: Carnival lauds agents for Caribbean switch-selling
Carnival Cruise Lines praised travel agents for switch-selling customers to the Caribbean in the wake of the line’s decision not to sail in Europe this year.
Speaking at a VIP agent round‑table event in Miami, Adolfo Perez, UK managing director, thanked agents for keeping Carnival at the forefront of customers’ minds and for switch-selling them from European sailings to the Caribbean.
The US line last year operated two ships in Europe – one sailing from Dover, the other from Barcelona and Venice – but pulled out this year amid fears that rising air fares would deter US customers from flying across the Atlantic.
Perez said: “We were surprised because we knew the Caribbean was strong for us, even in Europe and the UK, but we didn’t think it would be as strong as it has been, and agents have really delivered for us.”
Iain Baillie, head of sales for UK and Ireland, said UK business was 36% up year on year when the Europe sailings from last year were taken out of the equation.
He said: “We weren’t as heavily reliant on Europe as people thought: 40% of our business would have been bookings for European cruises and we’ve made that up.
“When we look at the figures now and take Europe out we are actually 36% up year on year (December 2012 to November 2013).
“When you put the Europe stats back in, we are nearly flat and that is credit to the agents, they have done that for us.”
When asked by agents whether the line would consider putting ships back in Europe next year, Lynn Torrent, executive vice-president of sales and guest services, said the line’s bosses were watching the moves being made by other international brands.
“We don’t know – we’re watching. It was a hard decision to not go back,” she said. “But when we looked at where customers came from they were still primarily from the US. The flights were getting so expensive relative to the cruise and we were very concerned about filling the ship.
“We are still watching what the international brands do. We will probably be last in that game because we are so small internationally.
“We will always have a strong Caribbean presence – the Caribbean will always be our bread and butter, no matter what international moves we make. We do very well with that product and we are very focused on it.
“We are optimising the Caribbean and then we are looking opportunistically at other places in the world.”
Demand: It’s not as robust as we’d like
More needs to be done across the industry to help drive demand and combat low pricing, a Carnival Cruise Line boss said.
Lynn Torrent, executive vice-president of sales and guest services, said agents and cruise lines needed to work together to increase demand.
Torrent said the market wasn’t as robust as she would have liked and that the US was becoming a lot more like the UK in being “promotionally orientated”. A combination of lots of capacity, low prices and high fuel costs were making for some “interesting circumstances”, she said.
Carnival was 17% up year on year during the wave period in January and Torrent believes the brand’s perception has almost recovered after a fire on Carnival Triumph in February last year.
“At a time in the marketplace where overall demand isn’t as robust as we’d like, there’s lots of capacity and our brand is still a little bit bruised – it leads to some interesting circumstances,” she said. “Despite all of that, we have had a record January for bookings, a very strong February, but as we are moving on, it is getting tough because of the consumer deals.”
However, Torrent said brands that had never advertised on TV before had started doing so in the US, and that even Carnival was adopting strategies it had not done before, such as promotional offers for US customers.
“We will look back on this year and learn from a lot of the things we have done, which are really outside our comfort zone,” she said. “Some things I thought we would never do but we are.”
Iain Baillie, head of sales for the UK and Ireland, said he was looking to work closely with agents to help boost demand. His team is considering holding webinars and roadshows for agents.
Capacity: Can yields increase by not sailing full?
Carnival Cruise Lines is experimenting to see whether yields can be increased by not sailing full all the time.
Andrew Pickering, cruise supplier relations manager at Thomas Cook, questioned whether Carnival had considered reducing capacity to increase yields and margins.
Lynn Torrent, executive vice-president of sales and guest services, said the line was experimenting with capacity and she was aware some luxury lines had also been “dabbling in not filling their ships”.
“We have tried to hold pricing when we get to a certain point, particularly in light of our brand recovery, so [not filling] is new for us,” she said.
“I wouldn’t say it was a strategy, but it is something we are trying. It looks like it probably worked in the first quarter, but it’s minimal and we are in uncharted territory.”
Deployment: Carnival Corp looks at all ships
Carnival Cruise Lines is unlikely to join three of its sister lines in sailing in Asia, but the possibility has not been ruled out.
Lynn Torrent, executive vice-president of sales and guest services, said that in parts of the Caribbean there were too many lines trying to book slots at the same ports and they were “tripping over each other”.
Asked by Paul Frost, of Jetline Holiday Group, whether Carnival Cruise Lines would consider moving into the Asian market, Torrent said the prospect was being considered from a Carnival Corporation perspective.
She said: “For the Carnival Cruise Lines brand, we’re not sure. It takes a huge investment to do something like that. We look at it from a Carnival Corporation perspective, so currently Costa Cruises, Princess Cruises and Aida Cruises are in the Far East.
“At this point there are no plans for Carnival Cruise Lines to do that, but never say never, because we are a big brand and it can transcend lots of markets.”
Carnival Corporation’s 10 brands include Cunard, Holland America Line and P&O Cruises.