Cruise lines 'New Presidents' hammer home need to keep brands unique

During a packed room for the "New Presidents Panel" at Seatrade Cruise Global on Tuesday, speakers included presidents of Norwegian Cruise Line, Princess Cruises, Celebrity Cruises and The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection.

'A lane for every cruise line'

"One of the things that is super important for all of us ... is to make sure we're truly differentiating ourselves, and being very differentiated for our specific customer base," said Celebrity Cruises President Laura Hodges Bethge, who took on the leadership role in May 2023. "There's a lane for every cruise line, and as long as we all keep really focused on being differentiated, we're going to be able to attract more and more of those vacationers into the industry."

Princess Cruises President John Padgett, who has been in the role since 2021, took the cue about brand identity and said his line's focus is the guest experience. Central to that is Princess' technology-focused MedallionCruising that gives each traveler their own wearable token that allows for personalized access aboard its ships and at some ports.

Personalized service at scale

"Princess is extremely unique in the sense that we're the only brand in the entire travel industry that can differentiate service at scale and so we can take our large-ship platforms, give incredible choice and incredible world class food, beverage, entertainment, accommodations, but we can get that small-ship personalization that is so unique to our bespoke tech that is patented-protected for us that we've been really developing for the last 10 years," he said.

He also took time to stump for Princess' newest and largest ship Sun Princess, but said "it was not built to be transformational at all."

"It was built with a maniacal focus on our guests, which simply took everything they love, and gave them more of it, and made sure we didn't take anything away," Padgett said. "So I think we may have just created the best cruise experience ever. We'll see."

The panel touched on how each of the lines tackle changing customer needs as the industry celebrated a record 31.7m in 2023, according to numbers from Cruise Lines International Association announced at the event.

"I think we're almost at an inflection point in our industry," said NCL President David Herrera. "It is absolutely an exciting time to be in the cruise industry, specifically at NCL, but of course, all of the brands have a lot of optimism and a lot of reasons for us to be bullish."

NCL's biggest challenge?

Herrera, who's been in the lead role for just over a year, said the biggest challenge has been keeping up with demand, something that played into the announcement Monday that his parent company had ordered four more ships for the NCL brand even as more sister ships to its Prima class are coming online in the next few years.

"How great is that? How awesome is that? That's something that we have to worry about, making sure that we're able to get everybody who wants to get on a cruise on one of our cruise ships," he said.

Herrera also said his line is targeting the massive potential of making a bigger dent to steal away customers from land-based vacations, referencing how the cruise industry is still around 3% of the total leisure travel market, up from 1.5% from before the pandemic, but still with plenty of opportunity for growth.

"Our opportunity is getting more people on cruise ships. And we do that working and partnering with … the ports, the destinations, the different vendors, the yard. We're all in this together. We're literally in the same boat."

Hodges Bethge echoed that desire to claim a bigger piece of the travel pie, noting that if Celebrity Cruises could get just 1% of the land-based vacation market, "we could fill 22 Edge-class ships."

Cruisers are brand loyal

She ribbed her fellow panelists about how surveys among her cruisers let her know that her line was the best, part of what drives their new marketing slogan, "Nothing comes close."

"They may tell you the same thing," she said with a laugh. "I can only tell you what they said to me."

Also on the panel was Ernesto Fara, who was named president of The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection in 2023 along with acting as the company's CFO. His luxury product is notably smaller than the hardware of the other presidents on the panel and only debuted its first vessel in 2022.

Honing the guest experience as a newcomer but with brand clout

"We are the smaller one and the younger one here. So I think in terms of challenges ... the biggest challenge we have today is to basically interpret the guest preferences and make sure that the experience is consistent," he said noting those with Ritz-Carlton loyalty are complex, and that their needs are something that will shift in the future.

"Everything about us is how do we secure it, the right guest experience at the moment for our guests," he said. "We are sitting on an incredible brand."

Ritz-Carlton’s debut helped bring new people to cruising, since many are dedicated to the hotel brand, but willing to try sailing.

"We are able to be basically an icebreaker in this world," Fara said.

It all comes down to the customer

The four presidents further traded differentiation points on subjects such as how they go after younger cruisers and just where they deploy their ships, but all kept coming back the main deciding factor in how they run their business, and that's the customer.

"The goal is to learn exactly what our guests want, and give them more," Herrera said. "More food, more beverage, more shore excursions, a little bit more of everything. But first, you've got to understand what your guest wants. You have to do your research."

That all feeds into the deployment choices and even the ship designs, and that's part of the reason business is booming after years of climbing out of the pandemic doldrums.

"You've got to ride the roller-coaster. Sometimes you're up, sometimes you're not, you know? Don't let yourself get too high, man. Don't let yourself get too low either," Herrera said. "The idea that this could be the new normal, maybe not exactly, maybe not forever. But right now it's pretty damn good to be in the cruise business isn't it?"

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