| Royal Caribbean hints at more ships

No big announcements yet, but
RCI’s Lisa Bauer was in Sydney
for the Australian office’s bestever
sales day.
ROYAL Caribbean Australia managing
director Gavin Smith was happy to report to
media this week that Monday had been “our
biggest individual booking day” during the
“biggest booking week in history”, when his
boss happened to be in town.
Lisa Bauer, the company’s Miami-based
executive vice president, global sales and
marketing, was on her first trip to Australia
since taking over the role from Michael Bayley,
but said she would not be making any big
announcements.
Bauer did suggest, however, that strong local
sales had reinforced the company’s desire to
base more big ships in the region.
“To have Voyager here is a real testament to
what a strategic market Australia is for this
part of the world,” she said.
“We’d like the opportunity to bring
additional ships here; the challenge is working
out where they could homeport.”
Bauer would not confirm that an Oasis-class
ship would soon be deployed from the
Caribbean to Asia, but said “never say never”.
“When we launched Voyager-class, we
always said they’d never leave the Caribbean.”
She said the company’s priority was to
develop cruising for the Australian and New
Zealand market and then to introduce
passengers to cruising in the rest of the world.
“Cruising is a very sexy industry – our
satisfaction level is greater than chocolate,”
she said.
Bauer, a former travel agent, acknowledged it
Pictured above from left are Royal Caribbean’s Lisa Vogt
(marketing mgr Asia Pacific), Lisa Bauer (Global head of
Commercial), and Gavin Smith (md Australia).
was agents who could help break down the
misperception that cruising was for “the nearly
dead, over fed and newly wed”.
The average age of Royal Caribbean
passengers is only 42, she revealed.
“Families travelling with other families” was
also a growing trend in Australia as well as
overseas, Bauer said.