John Padgett, the line’s chief experience and innovation officer, who led the team tasked with creating the gadget said he hoped rivals would deliver a great guest experience but would not be able to compete with the Medallion which encompasses: “everything that has been talked about in the industry for the last four or five years.”
The new technology will debut on Princess Cruises’ Regal Princess in November and will then feature onboard Royal Princess in January 2018 and Caribbean Princess in March next year.
Last month MSC Cruises unveiled its own technology platform due to be launched onboard MSC Seaside in the winter.
Speaking at a media dinner in London last night (April 24) Padgett said Carnival wanted to “bring personalisation to everyone” and as a result increase demand from the ‘new to cruise’ market.
“Most things in the cruise industry have been done from a business point of view and not from a guest standpoint. I call this the experience business not the cruise industry,” said Padgett.
He confirmed that the price of Medallion Class sailings would not rise as a result of introducing the technology.
Padgett, who was part of the team behind Disney’s MagicBand, added that in the future it would “seem conceivable” for the Ocean Medallion platform to be used onshore at the Princess-owned Princess Cays resort in the Bahamas.
He added that Carnival had earmarked a three-year plan to roll out Ocean Medallion across all of the Princess fleet but the timeframe may change “based on market dynamics”.
The system is powered by Bluetooth and uses an Internet of Things (IoT) network of intelligent sensors onboard and experiential computing devices.
4K portals will be installed onboard allowing guests to access digital content via their Ocean Medallions.
The Medallions enable passengers to order food and drinks on demand; speed up the port embarkation and disembarkation process; locate friends and family around the ship; access their staterooms as they approach the door and purchase merchandise without any transaction.
While onboard, passengers can use Ocean Medallion with an optional personalised digital concierge called Ocean Compass, a digital experience portal available online, on smart devices, on kiosks in US ports, on cabin TVs, interactive surfaces located throughout the ship and on devices carried by passenger service hosts.
Padgett revealed that Carnival had 27 patents pending on the technology which it had created for the Ocean Medallion platform.
