Tag Archives: Rio Olympics

Ranking cruise lines’ Rio efforts

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Norwegian Getaway in Rio
Three cruise companies made the Rio Olympic Games part of their 2016 strategy, so in the spirit of the competition, it seems only fitting to award them medals for their efforts.

Bronze

Royal Caribbean International is using the Rio games to revive its “Come Seek” TV advertising, which debuted last fall. The choice associates Royal with the international flavor of the Olympics, plus links it with popular athletes such as Michael Phelps and Simone Biles.

Advertisers like Royal spent $1.2 billion on the Olympics, but so far television ratings are down 15.5% from the 2012 games in London, averaging 27.9 million viewers through the first nine nights.

Still, I thought one video was particularly effective. Titled “We Play Games Too,” it shows an aquatic performer on one of Royal’s Oasis-class ships doing a handstand on a diving platform before plunging into what seems like a pool the size of a postage stamp. The ad effectively showcases something that none of Royal’s competitors can duplicate.

Silver

Silversea Cruises, aptly enough, wins the silver for chartering the Silver Cloud as a floating hotel for the U.S. men’s and women’s basketball teams. The charter earned Silversea a boatload of free publicity, including a front-page article in the New York Times.

Sports channels and outlets also picked up on an extended monologue by USA team coach Mike Krzyzewski about staying on the ship, although Chicago Bulls star Jimmy Butler could have shown a little more enthusiasm.

“I just do what I’m told,” Butler said. “I’m told to sleep on a boat, so I sleep on a boat.”

Gold

While Silversea hosted athletes, Norwegian Cruise Line chartered its Norwegian Getaway for use by sports bureaucrats, including members of the International Olympic Federation, the National Organizing Committees, the Rio Host Committee as well as corporate sponsors.

While not as productive on the publicity front, it gave high-ranking influencers from dozens of countries exposure to a cruise ship, and Norwegian in particular, that they might not otherwise have.

Norwegian gained another backhanded benefit. By chartering the Getaway, it removed the 4,000-passenger ship for 40 days from the Miami/Caribbean market, which “helped alleviate some of the pricing pressure” caused by having two big ships in the Miami market during the summer, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings CEO Frank del Rio said.

Norwegian couldn’t have anticipated that effect when it started charter plans for the Rio games nine years ago, but good luck often plays a role in Olympic wins, as it did for Norwegian here.

River cruise news to watch in 2016

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KV Ganges Voyager

As I look ahead at what news the river cruise industry will bring in 2016, I’ve got my eye on several stories and developments.
As we kick off the year, Uniworld Boutique River Cruise Collection is launching its first-ever program on India’s Ganges River with Haimark Travel’s luxury vessel, the 56-passenger Ganges Voyager II. We’re bound to start hearing some of the initial feedback and reviews from that product launch in the coming days and weeks after completion of the first few cruises.
Michelle Baran
Michelle Baran

This spring, I’ll be keeping a close eye on the launch of CroisiEurope’s 80-passenger Elbe Princesse, a paddlewheeler the French company has custom-built for Germany’s shallow Elbe River. And of course I’ll be looking for new innovations and ideas among all the ship launches in Europe this spring. With Viking River Cruises, Amawaterways, Avalon Waterways, Tauck, Scenic and Emerald Waterways all adding inventory this year, someone is bound to surprise us with something, no?

Come summer, I’ll be looking for word on how the new Adventures by Disney river cruising product plays out after the first sailings begin in July on AmaWaterways’ AmaStella. And I’d be lying if I didn’t say one of the developments I’m most curious about is the introduction of Crystal Cruises’ first river cruise effort, the renovation and relaunch of the former Peter Deilmann Mozart, which will set sail anew on July 13.

This will be our first glance not only at Crystal’s version of river cruising but at how an ocean cruise line interprets the river cruise market. I, for one, am agog. And Crystal only has additional excitement planned for us in 2017 when it introduces us to its version of four river cruising newbuilds.

Elsewhere in the river cruising world, I’m wondering how and whether the Nile will pull out of its perpetual slump, and if the Amazon will see an uptick in interest due to the Rio Olympics. I’m also following developments in Asia, where Pandaw River Expeditions keeps surprising with new river routes and other companies keep adding capacity.

And imagine, that’s just the stuff we more or less already know about. There’s no telling what river cruising bombshells (either good or bad) are yet to be dropped on us. Take cover!