The Southampton Cruise Centre is now able to take bookings online via its ocean cruise website in a bid to capture more customers.
Initially, the site is offering cruises departing from the UK but will develop in the coming months to be able to offer fly-cruises as well.
The e-commerce platform on SouthamptonCruiseCentre.com is powered by Dreamlake technology and integrated with the website built by DTMG.
Cruise lines signed up already are P&O Cruises, Princess Cruises, Cunard, Celebrity Cruises, Royal Caribbean International, MSC Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line, Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises – and more operators waiting to get onboard.
Phil Nuttall, group chief executive at parent company The Travel Village Group, said: “This has been a project we have been working on for several months in an effort to ensure our family business remains relevant to our current guests and to those we are looking to attract to our brand.
“With more people comfortable with transacting higher value products online, we simply have to be in this arena.”
He said the business has to offer an “open all hours” policy to capitalise on the volume of visitors visiting the site outside the sales team’s normal operating hours and during peak periods.
The project has been developed over the past 10 months, led by the group’s e-commerce manager Lewis Johnston.
There are consumer touch points throughout the booking journey and in post-booking documentation “to provide guests with that family business reassurance”, added Nuttall.
He highlighted how the online booking facility will not dissuade existing guests to move away from the sales team – it will only encourage salespeople to make themselves “even more valuable and relevant to their customers and seek more referrals”.
“Hopefully this is a win-win situation for everyone involved,” he commented.
Johnston added: “It was the natural next stage of our online journey. There is a growing demand for customers transacting online and we needed to be involved in that arena.
“We introduced a subtle new layout to search results and cruise pages, so that our visitors always have visible options to call our team, send an enquiry or to book online.”
Johnston said the company will promoting the bookable site with its existing online marketing channels, email marketing, organic search and through social media.
“We’ve recently launched a new Tik Tok account to also drive traffic from a younger demographic,” he said.
And feedback from clients has so far been “great”, he added.
“The first booking actually came from a customer travelling down to London on the train,” said Johnston.
“We gave him a courtesy call and he was so impressed, he sent the link on to his friends and they booked too.
“Our care team are also impressed with the platform, as many of the client touch points are handled automatically, making administering the bookings a much slicker process.
“All online bookings are treated exactly like any other; they are backed up by the services of our award-winning customer care team.
“Each customer booking also receives a courtesy call to make sure they are happy and have everything they need.”
David Malmberg, founder of Dreamlake, said: “Dreamlake is thrilled to partner with Southampton Cruise Centre on bringing full end-to-end ecommerce supported by offline experts to the Southampton Cruise Centre customer base.
“A new generation of digital-first travellers are joining the ranks of cruisers and are expecting to be able to, unaided online, do everything from search to getting on their cruise.
“But they also expect experts to support them when the need arises. Dreamlake’s platform brings this capability to Southampton Cruise Centre.”