MSC sets out plans to triple UK passengers

Posted on 14 July, 2014 by Spacejunkie2

MSC Cruises has set out ambitious plans to grow the number of UK passengers it serves.

According to chief executive Giles Hawke, the company reckons it can attract 200,000 Britons per year by 2017 – up from 60,000 today and an almost threefold increase.

Mr Hawke made these comments in an interview with Travel Weekly, mentioning a raft of new marketing initiatives intended to support the campaign.

MSC, which mostly serves the Mediterranean cruise market and recently announced it will add a further four ships to its fleet, also plans to charter three flights per week from Heathrow to ferry Britons into Italian ports.

Two of the planes will fly to Genoa, with the other landing in Venice.

In time, though, MSC wants to reintroduce Mediterranean cruises that actually depart from the UK itself, potentially by launching a Fantasia-class ship in 2016.

MSC Cruises to increase shore excursion commission

Posted on 2 July, 2014 by Spacejunkie2

By Hollie-Rae Merrick s

MSC Cruises to increase shore excursion commission

MSC Cruises is increasing commission on shore excursions to a minimum of 10% to encourage agents to book tours directly, instead of using third-party suppliers.

The line currently offers 5% commission on excursions, but within the next month – when MSC unveils its new booking platform – the line will begin a six-month pilot to test whether shore excursion booking volumes increase with a rise in commission.

Agents will earn the same amount of commission on cruise bookings and excursions. The base commission rate is 10%, so agents on that rate will earn the same on excursions.

The line made the announcement at an event in London this evening where it also unveiled its new bookings system for agents, MSC Book.

Executive director Giles Hawke (pictured) said agents were booking through third-party companies such as Attraction World and Cruisingexcursions.co.uk because they could earn more. But he argued that increasing commission would give agents the chance to make more money with MSC.

“This is a way of agents earning more money and we want to see if an increased amount makes a difference – if it does, then we will keep it going.”

Hawke said the new commission structure had been the result of agent feedback.

“There are companies who are just selling excursions and the fact we pay some commission recognises the importance of agents. They are proactively selling the products of these cruise excursion companies and if it is because they can earn money, then we’ll give them the opportunity to earn more so they can sell our cruise excursions.”

MSC also announced it was planning to double its UK sales team to 10 by January, as well as having a further team of 20 on the road promoting the line to agents.

The line is working with former Barrhead Travel director Trevor Davis and his marketing and support company 3For, which is creating a 20-strong field team of ‘MSC Ambassadors’ to train agents nationwide three or four times a year.

The new sales team and the increased commission on shore excursion, together with better account management and a consistent message on deals and pricing, are part of MSC’s ‘Serving You’ campaign, which aims to ensure agents can easily access all they need to book.

Hawke said plans were in place to help the line achieve 200,000 passengers from the UK by 2017 when he expects a ship to return to offer ex-UK sailings. He added that if agents show their support earlier there is a chance they a ship could return a year earlier.

Carnival Corp. CEO: Competitors’ newbuilds may hurt pricing

Posted on 9 June, 2014 by Spacejunkie2

By Tom Stieghorst

MSC Cruises’ order book of four big new ships is an example of a trend that could spell trouble for an industry struggling to raise prices, Carnival Corp. CEO Arnold Donald said.

“We’ll have to see how it all plays out,” Donald said in a recent teleconference with reporters. “In an ideal world, you wish it wasn’t happening.”

Arnold Donald Donald was not singling out MSC’s expansion for criticism, but he happened to be making his comments on the day the line ordered two 4,170-passenger ships. That came on the heels of an order for two 4,500-passenger ships, part of a plan to double MSC’s capacity by 2022.

Asked how prices can rise if Carnival Corp. restrains its own brands’ capacity growth while other lines don’t, Donald said he was confident that Carnival’s strategy was sound. It includes incremental growth in onboard revenue and ticket prices spread over 78 million passenger days, coupled with shrinking expenses by employing best practices culled from its 10 brands.

But, he said, if any competitor resorts to “super-aggressive pricing” to fill its ships, “then it can become a problem for the industry.”

Donald said travelers come to view the industry’s lowest prices as a gauge of how much they should pay for any cruise.

“People say, ‘I’m not going to go on that ship, but cruises only cost this much, and I don’t want to pay more than that because I don’t want to get ripped off.'”

On the other hand, he said, the upside of new capacity is more attention being paid to cruise products.

“It just allows them the opportunity to put cruise front and center, to help all of us close on [those] new to cruise,” he said.

MSC Cruises USA President Rick Sasso said that the real pricing stress this year has been in the Caribbean and that MSC wasn’t the initiator of the fare discounting there.

“It should not be a surprise to anybody that we’ve been successful and we’re going to continue to invest in our brand,” he said.