Cruise ship returns home with more than 600 sick passengers

Posted on 31 January, 2014 by Spacejunkie2

By Tom Stieghorst

Royal Caribbean’s Explorer of the Seas returned to its home port in Bayonne, N.J., on Wednesday afternoon following a widespread outbreak of gastrointestinal illness on the 3,000-passenger ship.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported that 629 passengers, more than 20% of the passengers onboard, were affected by the illness over the course of the cruise. Also, 54 crew members were reported ill.

The last time a cruise ship had as many sick people was in 2006, when 536 passengers and 143 crew members from the Carnival Liberty were reported ill, according to CDC records.

Royal Caribbean shortened the 10-day cruise to eight days to allow for extra sanitation measures before the next cruise on Friday.

“Guests scheduled for the next cruise on Explorer of the Seas can be confident that all possible measures will have been taken to prevent further problems,” a Royal Caribbean statement said.

Royal Caribbean said it plans a thorough sanitizing of the entire ship.

Officials from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control said they won’t know if it was a norovirus outbreak until later this week.

Passengers on the stricken cruise will receive a 50% refund of their cruise fare and a 50% future cruise credit.

Guests who had to be confined to staterooms will be credited with one future cruise day for each day of confinement.

Royal Caribbean said it will also reimburse airline change fees and hotel accommodations for guests whose travel home was inconvenienced by the change of travel plans.

Cruising’s advantage over theme park magic

Posted on 28 January, 2014 by Spacejunkie2

By Tom Stieghorst

I had the chance last week to spend some time at a Central Florida theme park, one of the cruise industry’s competitors for the vacation dollar.

Universal Studios Orlando offers a formidable array of attractions, including an evening entertainment complex, three luxury hotels with a budget-priced resort in the wings and a pair of theme parks chock full of roller coasters, rides and faithful backlot reproductions of New York, San Francisco and even Homer Simpson’s hometown, Springfield.

The latest project at Universal is a re-creation of London for an attraction devoted to literary wizard Harry Potter. Sometime this summer The Wizarding World of Harry Potter — Diagon Alley will open, bringing the Wyndham Theater and other landmarks of the city to more than 6 million Universal Studios visitors annually.

Cruise lines have one crucial edge in the competition. While theme parks must re-create the world in Central Florida, cruise ships can actually bring guests to all of the fascinating destinations that can only be represented at land-based parks. *TomStieghorst

It seems almost too obvious to mention, but “destination” sometimes gets lost in the cruise industry’s sales initiatives.

One of Wizarding World’s marvels will be a train, the Hogwarts Express, running between the new attraction in Universal Studios and the original Harry Potter theme area in the adjacent Islands of Adventure park.

Although Universal is withholding details, executives hint that the train will have video screens instead of windows to project images of London and the British countryside on the journey from Diagon Alley to the imaginary Hogsmeade village in Scotland. It will be exciting to see, and I’ll look forward to it as much as the next theme park fan. But on a cruise excursion one could see the real thing in all of its glory. That has to trump seeing the facsimile in Orlando, no matter how clever the reproduction.

The same applies to the themed re-creations of France, China and Morocco in Walt Disney World’s Epcot or the Bavarian beer hall at Busch Gardens in Tampa. How much better to drink some locally brewed beer in Hamburg, or see the quays of Shanghai from the deck of a cruise ship.

Orlando has its advantages, too. Plenty of people who struggle to afford going abroad can see a version of distant lands there. But cruises can take guests to the real thing, and that’s a selling point agents ought to play up.

Cruise.co.uk partners with marketing specialist Tradedoubler

Posted on 16 January, 2014 by Spacejunkie2

By Travolution

An affiliate marketing programme is being launched by Cruise.co.uk in partnership with performance marketing specialist Tradedoubler.

The online cruise agent will benefit from integrated tracking across desktop, mobile devices and landline in order to diversify its marketing channels and boost sales.

This will enable the company to capture and track all audiences, both online and offline.

Tradedoubler has also worked with Cruise.co.uk to produce a creative marketing and commercial model to help drive traffic and sales to the cruise aggregator’s website.

Tradedoubler already works with travel providers such as Royal Caribbean, DFDS and Expedia.

Cruise.co.uk head of strategic partnerships Brendon Collins said: “Prospective consumers often want to talk to a cruise agent, even if they’ve found a discounted deal online.

“With our previous affiliate marketing campaigns, we were unable to track [once the customer was on the phone] which online promotion the lead had generated from.

“However, we will be able to track the history of the consumer’s purchase journey from start to finish and the network of publishers accordingly, thanks to Tradedoubler’s seamlessly integrated tracking tool.”

Dan Cohen, regional director at Tradedoubler added: “Affiliate marketing programmes progressively need to be integrated through multiple channels and be tracked, to capture optimal audiences and maximise the return-on-investment for the advertiser.

“By being able to track the full purchase journey, advertisers will gain insight to keep re-modelling and evolving their affiliate marketing programmes, to further drive traffic and sales.”

– See more at: http://www.travolution.com/articles/2014/01/14/7449/cruise-co-uk-partners-with-marketing-specialist-tradedoubler.html#sthash.m6jeSFb1.dpuf