Steady sailing for Princess Cruises

by Daisy Melwani, etravelblackboard.com

Princess Cruises’ CEO & President, Alan Buckelew has told guests attending the 2010 Partnership Summit that the cruise line sailed through steady waters in 2009, opting for consistency onboard its ships through a new revitalization scheme.

Calling cost management procedures in place in 2009 “superb”, Mr Buckelew claimed every department contributed toward ensuring protection was made toward its product and crew, and continues to do so in 2010. Revenue forecast in the first quarter of 2009 was apparently down some US$350 million.

The outcome so far has been a more loyal passenger base, according to Mr Buckelew, who said cost savings were able to fund all of its new Grand Class revitalizations which amount to some US$30 million per ship.

“We looked at service recovery in 2009, and in this time of challenge we made investments to our crew and upgrades on our product,” he said.

New innovations including pre-cruise emails, e-documentation and the formation of eZAir – a GDS style airline booking engine, are expected to be rolled out in coming months.

“We are the consummate host, which is part of our brand,” Princess Cruises Executive VP, Sales, Marketing & Customer Service, Jan Swartz said.

“We want to be the easiest cruise line to work with (for the trade). We will continue to roll out new innovations in the next few months to make the travel agents’ life easier.”

Ms Swartz outlined Princess’ strategy in Australia and New Zealand was to penetrate the market for more bookings on its international deployments.

“One of the main things is how air is handled in this market, so hopefully eZAir will help open up distribution,” she said.

“There are a lot of agencies that haven’t yet seen how lucrative the cruising market is, so we need to make distribution aware with detailed instruction and training.”

Citing the ‘richest’ loyalty program in the industry, Princess Cruises are said to be looking at ways to also improve upon its scheme.