It never rains, but it pours, goes the saying. That’s the feeling I’m sure many of us are feeling about cruise ships.
It seems that every week you hear about another new ship order being commissioned, and another launching. Of course, at this time of year cruise ship excitement is always heightened, with so many ships coming back to this side of the Atlantic for the summer season.
But am I bored? Never! The cruise industry is one of the only sectors of the travel and leisure sector that has continued to invest at a steady pace, despite recent recession years.
There are new river ships, exploration ships and larger resort style ships. And at Celebrity Cruises, we’re not missing out on the trend either. We have two new ships on order under the code name Project Edge, which are scheduled to join our fleet in 2018 and 2020.
The nay-sayers sometimes challenge the cruise sector as having too much capacity. I don’t share this view. Over two-thirds of the Earth’s surface is water – even I haven’t cruised into even 1% of the world’s ports.
Customer zest for travel and experiencing new things hasn’t waned either. Ask anyone what they would do if they won the lottery, and the almost unanimous answer is to go on the holiday of a lifetime.
I know that I’d take a private jet somewhere gorgeous, stay in the most luxurious suite at sea I could find and watch the world go by for a few weeks while my new-found wealth sunk in.
Travel is a dream, and thankfully for those of us in the business of travel, one that many people are able to realise. How we are inspired, how we book, and what we expect from those travel experiences has definitely changed and will continue to do so. The cruise sector is arguably more aware of this than other areas of the travel industry.
We are the Kylie of travel – we reinvent, becoming more and more fabulous, and with a younger, fresher new feature every time. Importantly, the cruise industry’s investment in new capacity isn’t bringing more of the same.
It might be pouring new ships and new opportunities, but each and every new cruise-related development is different. Just in the last few weeks we’ve seen announcements revealing plans for specially customised expedition ships, all-season ships promising to feature plenty of open space, and the arrival of ships with infinity pools, Imax theatres, slides, breweries at sea, robot bar tenders and more.
So when it pours with new ships, it is with thunderbolts and lightning flashes of brilliance. While new ships mean more capacity for agents to sell, savvy agents know that it is about understanding the points of difference for each ship rather than panicking about price.
When the cruise industry is treating us to a downpour of new ships, that means there is a pot of gold for the agents who invest in cruise, sell on experiences rather than price, and join in the fun.
Jo Rzymowska is managing director UK & Ireland for Celebrity Cruises