| Smith reveals RCC strategy for 2012

Royal Caribbean and Celebrity
Cruises will start the year with
aggressive pricing and highly
visual campaigns that focus on ship
features, rather than itineraries.
GAVIN Smith, general manager, Royal
Caribbean Cruises Australia, has told Cruise
Weekly that the company’s two local brands
are set for an exciting new direction.
“Royal and Celebrity are bringing two of the
world’s best ships down here, so for the first
time in Australia, I think ships will become the
destination, and the ports of call will be
complementary,” he said.
Agents can expect to see a strong marketing
push for Voyager of the Seas and Celebrity
Solstice over the next few months.
“Until now we have been focused on telling
the consumer about the current summer
season, but in Jan/Feb we will delivering the
imagery on the onboard amenities – the ship
will be the hero.
“We will bring the visual appeal of the ships
to life during the first half of the year, and I am
very confident that we can generate a lot of
excitement.”
The new Voyager campaign is designed to
highlight the introduction of the Dreamworks
program, which was quietly announced last year.
“We haven’t wanted to confuse people who
might think they would get the Dreamworks
characters and parades and breakfasts on
Radiance and Rhapsody, but now we will really
be promoting our great family appeal.”
The Solstice advertising will highlight unique
features such as the Lawn Club.
Pricing for both brands will be “very genuine,
to make us more relevant as a holiday option,”
Smith said.
“I don’t think we can leave aggressive pricing
until later in the year because those
passengers will just travel with someone else.”
The arrival of the two new ships will also affect
the focus of others ships in the fleet next season.
“As agents will note in the summer
deployments for 2012-13, our ships are
spending a lot of time in Australia, and not so
much time in the South Pacific, so Voyager and
Solstice will become our Australia-New
Zealand ships and Radiance and Rhapsody will
become our South Pacific ships,” Smith said.
“This is because the Royal and Celebrity model
is very dependent on Americans and Europeans
travelling to Australia – 35-50% of our guests
are inbound – and they are most interested in
coastal Australia and New Zealand.”