The value proposition gap between cruises and land-based holidays “expanded” during the pandemic, according to the boss of Royal Caribbean Group.
Jason Liberty, who was previously chief financial officer at the three-brand cruise giant before becoming president and chief executive in January, called on lines to take advantage of the “pricing opportunity” that was on offer.
“There’s a lot of pricing opportunity for [cruise lines] and that’s just getting out our message and people experiencing what a great experience cruise is,” he said.
“The reality of it is that differential of what a cruise costs against a land-based vacation is pretty significant and it has expanded during the pandemic.”
Asked if he was happy with the current pricing levels Royal Caribbean Group brands currently offered, he said: “I am always going to say that we deserve more for the product that we put out in place.”
Liberty (pictured) confirmed the group had seen “an increase” in direct sales.
This month, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings president Frank Del Rio said he expected direct bookings for sailings offered by NCLH brands to surpass agent sales by the end of 2023.
“The reality is our consumers did get a little tech savvy during the pandemic and started buying online,” Liberty explained.
But he stressed none of the brands had deliberately encouraged direct sales: “It’s how the demand is coming in – it’s becoming more level.”
He went on to say that because travel agencies had taken time to ramp up their businesses during the pandemic, consumers had increasingly booked directly with cruise lines.
“Some of it is the travel partners getting their business up and running,” he said. “We have a lot of travel partners that were in similar situations to what we were in – we were not operating.
“It’s taken a tremendous amount of effort for them to get their business back up and running to where they were pre-Covid.”
He added that the company listened to agents “all the time” in a bid to understand how it could support them better.
“Whatever we can do to help support their business we always very open to doing,” he said. “Cruise is a complicated product and our agents provide an incredible service.”