Tag Archives: P&O Cruises

AIDAnova Delivered

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AIDAnova

Carnival Corporation has welcomed AIDA Cruises’ new AIDAnova into its fleet today at a celebration in Bremerhaven, Germany, as the world’s first cruise vessel to be powered at sea and in port by liquefied natural gas (LNG).

“AIDAnova is a milestone for our company and the entire cruise industry,” said Michael Thamm, group CEO of Carnival Corporation’s Costa Group – which includes AIDA Cruises and Costa Cruises – and Carnival Asia. “With Carnival Corporation pioneering LNG technology, we start a new era of environmentally friendly cruising. It’s important now that the respective infrastructure will be further developed as more and more cruise lines are following our example.”

The largest cruise ship ever built at a German shipyard, AIDAnova also marks an exciting new generation of ships for AIDA Cruises.

AIDAnova set sail today for the Canary Islands to welcome its inaugural guests at Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain, embarking on December 19 for a seven-day holiday cruise around the Canary Islands and Madeira.

“I am so pleased about this extraordinary ship, which is another milestone on our steady path to providing sustainable cruises,” said Felix Eichhorn, president of AIDA Cruises, at today’s handover event. “AIDAnova will offer guests entirely new experiences onboard through the further development of the innovative ship designs of AIDAprima and AIDAperla, and many other successful products in the AIDA fleet. With an extraordinary variety of individual vacation options, exciting entertainment and new wellness, fitness and culinary offerings, we are providing new and exciting reasons for people to enjoy a cruise vacation, one of the vacation industry’s fastest-growing sectors.”

In 2021 and 2023, two additional ships from the new AIDA Cruises generation of vessels will join the AIDA fleet, in addition to new LNG-powered ships on order for Costa Cruises, P&O Cruises in the UK, and Carnival Cruise Line and Princess Cruises.

Following today’s launch of AIDAnova, Carnival Corporation has an additional 10 next-generation “green” cruise ships on order that will be powered by LNG.

P&O Cruises launches 3D augmented reality campaign for new ship Iona

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Image result for P&O Iona

P&O Cruises has launched an augmented reality campaign to promote its latest new ship, Iona, in what it claims is a cruise industry first.

The campaign aims to bring to life the ship’s onboard experiences in interactive 3D ahead of its completion and launch in 18 months time.

Powered by augmented reality pioneer, Blippar, the campaign was created to allow travel agents and consumers to experience Iona.

Christopher Edgington, P&O Cruises vice president marketing, said: “Iona’s scale and breadth of experiences will offer holidays like never before and this demands marketing like never before.

“With Iona going on sale two years before its launch, we realised that we needed to create new and innovative ways to reach and engage both existing and potential guests. The obvious solution to this was our first ever augmented reality campaign.”

The initial 3D renders for Iona were produced by content agency Sunday from which the augmented reality experiences were crafted by creative agency Founded with technology from Blippar.

Almost 300,000 pieces of direct mail have been sent to travel agents and past guests with details of how to download the Blippar app, which will provide them with the ability to experience Iona in augmented reality.

Once the Blippar app is opened and a phone is held over the image of Iona, the ship will come to life and may be explored from bow to stern.

Included in the AR are images of the SkyDome, a large glass domed entertainment and relaxation area on the top deck, cabins and the Grand Atrium.

As more Iona images and designs become available, new augmented reality experiences will be added. Anyone ‘blipping’ the ship before November 1 will have a chance to win a one-week cruise on Iona.

Edgington continued: “A week after launch we have beaten our targets for a number of blips and dwell time which proves that interactive marketing and the ability to get a much more intimate and inspiring view of the ship is a hit with our guests.”

UK Market Moves Toward All-Inclusive Cruises

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Marella’s fleet will be all-inclusive come 2019.

The UK’s cruise market is going from strength-to-strength with bargain-hungry Brits boosting the all-inclusive package concept.

Phil Evans, the founder and owner of Cruise Nation, said there is also a trend in the overall marketplace for long-haul products, which are “massively up over last year”. 

Evans told Cruise Industry News: “Consumers want great value for money, and while free drinks packages represent the best value in most cases, customers who do not drink are often left at a disadvantage, therefore it is important to give customers choices.”

Online agency Iglu’s commercial product director, Dave Mills, is upbeat about the fortunes for the UK  market and explained that the market has moved away from a purely price-driven sector with cruise lines now increasingly offering a more all-inclusive product and having a lot more to do onboard which is, more often than not, included in the price.

All-Inclusive

“These all-inclusive packages are so popular right now. The more you have included and the more time you have to explain the experiences, the more interest we see,” Mills said. “Outside the cruising market, all-inclusive holidays are very popular and the cruise market looks like it’s joining this sector in some way.”

He added that the cruise lines have committed to offering ever better value in recent years and packages are effectively close to the final holiday costs outside the sector with guests not having to spend much once they are onboard.

The UK market is looking strong for the future, led by Carnival Corporation’s P&O Cruises UK. The new P&O Iona will be based in Southampton starting in spring 2020.

All-inclusive packages can include shore excursions and, even if they are not included, Mills said that cruise lines are working hard to offer immersive, once-in-a-lifetime experiences, which can still be very good value for money.

Like Cruise Nation, Iglu is also seeing distinct trends appearing in the UK’s cruise market.

“There are some broader trends and we are seeing huge growth in the area of expedition cruises, where people are generally going on smaller ships but heading off the beaten track to destinations such as the Galapagos and Antarctica,” Mills said. “Perhaps this is down to people seeing programs such as Blue Planet on TV and then want to see the locations for themselves.

Booking Window

Another trend appearing for travel agencies is for Brits to book their cruise holidays further ahead than in recent years.

Evans noted: “There has been a significant shift so far this year to winter 2018-2019 and summer 2019. This is mainly down to the many early booking offers available; in some cases, it is cheaper to book a 2019 cruise over a 2018 cruise.

“We have also seen our customers book further ahead than they were this time last year; our average booking window is now nine months in advance.

“Overall cruise prices are increasing. Cruise lines are rewarding customers for booking early with the best prices and incentives. Whereas two years ago, customers were waiting until the last minute knowing that prices would be reduced and they would get a better deal.”