The ‘horrible mess’ of shore excursions

Posted on 3 February, 2015 by Spacejunkie2

By Tom Stieghorst

Cruise lines are starting to see declines from one of their most important revenue streams, shore excursions. That was one of the admissions made by newly named Royal Caribbean International President Michael Bayley at a forum for agents onboard the Freedom of the Seas.

Bayley gasped in mock horror after asking the group of about 250 agents whether they sold Royal Caribbean’s branded shore excursions or somebody else’s. In unison, they chanted “Somebody else’s.” When he asked for a show of hands, well over half the group responded.

“You know, we do have to change the system,” Bayley said in a half-joking, half-serious tone. “It’s a horrible mess.

“We must spend more time talking about this than I don’t know what else,” Bayley added. “We’re always trying to find the right solution.”

Elliott Finkleman, owner of an Expedia CruiseShipCenter outlet near Ottawa, said both Royal Caribbean and travel agents could make more money if Royal paid a commission on excursion sales.

“You’re losing out because it forces me to sell alternate product,” Finkelman said. “I don’t want to spend a lot of time on shore excursions, going port by port, and get nothing back from that.”

Vicki Freed, Royal’s senior vice president of sales, trade support and service, said that the line does pay commission on group shore excursions and that guests with excursion tickets sold through Royal get first priority in getting off the ship at port.

And Bayley reminded agents that there are some risks with third-party providers.

“If they’re selling at lower prices, they’re paying these commissions, chances are they do not have the same liability coverage and they have not gone through the process of safety for the guest that we go through,” he said.

Bayley said excursions have always been an important part of the cruise revenue pie.

“We all have revenue streams and we all try to protect them,” he said. “We have seen an erosion over the past couple of years, and it’s pretty obvious where that erosion is coming from, after our show of hands.”

Royal Caribbean tests Internet capability by offering free WiFi

Posted on 3 February, 2015 by Spacejunkie2

Royal Caribbean International has given away Internet access for the past couple of weeks on its newest ship, Quantum of the Seas.

The ship is one of three to be rigged for communications with the O3b mid-level satellite network, that provides for greater bandwidth and communications speeds.

The debut of a new, faster Internet service on Royal Caribbean International ships is only weeks away.

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. Chairman Richard Fain said in a conference call with Wall Street analysts on Thursday that the system is now in testing on Oasis of the Seas, and full rollout is expected in early summer.

Provider O3B is using a series of mid-orbit satellites for the service, rather than one geostationary satellite orbiting at 22,000 miles. That means signals travel shorter distances, increasing speeds.

Fain said that the change will give Oasis “more Internet bandwidth than every other cruise ship of every other cruise line in the world combined.”

The service is initially targeted for Oasis of the Seas and the upcoming Quantum-class ships.

Internet service with speeds closer to those on land will help Royal Caribbean attract Millennial generation cruisers (ages 14-34) in particular, Fain said.

Royal Caribbean President Michael Bayley said guests were encouraged to use as much Internet capacity as they wanted or needed at no charge during recent cruises.

“On Quantum, because we have so much bandwidth, over the past three weeks we’ve given out free WiFi. I mean free, free, free all the time,” Bayley told a group of travel agents on Freedom of the Seas over the weekend.

Royal Caribbean officials said the experiment was a kind of “stress test” to see just how much demand the system can handle.

“So we’ve been monitoring the consumption of bandwidth when we let everybody have free bandwidth — the crew, the guests, everybody — and we’ve only used a fraction of it,” Bayley said.

The standard charge on most Royal Caribbean ships for Internet access is 65 cents a minute.

Cruise line officials said it is unlikely that Internet access will become free on ships equipped with O3b. The current working model is to charge like many land resorts a fee of $10 to $15 a day for unlimited access, Royal Caribbean spokesman Harry Liu said.

There will be a premium package for large-bandwidth usage like streaming video, and Bayley said the line is exploring what it can do with such applications.

“Soon we’re going to start speaking more about this capability,” Bayley told the agents. “Because of the scale and size of this bandwidth, we could do streaming videos. It’s genuinely as good as being in a city somewhere in the United States. It is better than that.”

Royal Caribbean to alter new dining format

Posted on 3 February, 2015 by Spacejunkie2

Royal Caribbean International will make its first major change to the Dynamic Dining concept introduced on Quantum of the Seas.

When Quantum’s sister ship, Anthem of the Seas, debuts in April, guests will have the option of choosing Dynamic Dining Classic, which will have many of the attributes of eating in the main dining room on other Royal Caribbean ships.

The classic option allows diners to choose an early seating and sit at the same table every night. Guests will also be served by the same waiter and assistant waiter throughout the cruise. They will rotate through the four complimentary restaurants on Anthem and will find their table in the same location in each restaurant nightly, said Royal Caribbean President Michael Bayley.

Bayley disclosed the new wrinkle in Dynamic Dining at a travel agent event aboard Freedom of the Seas on Saturday.

He said Royal Caribbean has had “some struggles” implementing Dynamic Dining since it debuted on Quantum in November. Older guests in particular have not taken to the new format, he said.

Dynamic Dining scraps the large main dining room, and traditional early and late seatings, for smaller 430-seat restaurants with different themes and cuisines.

Guest ratings have slowly improved for Dynamic Dining to the point where they are equal to or better than the fleet average, Bayley said.

“We really want to make this concept work,” Bayley told the agents, “and we’re very close to making it successful.”