Leader Talk:
Gavin Smith
The outbound numbers in the cruise segment from the South Asia market, especially from India, is expected to grow exponentially as cruise ships become more accessible and packages become affordable to customers. And as the company looks at putting more ships in Singapore and Hong Kong in the near future, India outbound becomes vital to the cruise line’s growth. The Indian market is growing by 8-10 per cent annually. This will triple by 2020. Currently, there are around one lakh guests per annum for cruising experiences from India. There is opportunity for three lakh guests in the next five years. This will be facilitated by the world’s best ships coming to Asia soon. Thus, we need to offer fly-cruise programmes closer to India to drive business.
We are betting big on travel agents in India for expanding our market share in the country. The commission on cruises goes as high as 10 per cent on total ticket
pric- ing. Regarding consumer behaviour, the trend in cruises is that they go online and check all facilities but book only after face-to-face dialogue with travel agents. The incidence of people booking cruise lines directly from India is only about five per cent, primarily because no cruise currently departs from Indian shores. Thus, the traveller needs flights, transfers and accommodation before coming on board.
This is where the travel agent plays a big role as Indians buy cruises only from travel agents. Thus, we need to invest in our travel
distribution market.
The Indian cruise market is currently of two kinds—the young travellers taking the twonight itinerary and the high-end luxury traveller that goes all the way to Alaska and Europe. We are looking at filling this void. The company is looking to tap the families, leisure and MICE segment by offering near-fly cruising opportunities. If we improve the accessibility of cruise ships to the market then they need not travel to North America and Europe to access them. Also, if we deliver an appealing port density to get multiple countries and multiple ports, we will have a formula for success in any given market.
The group is looking at making products more relevant with introduction of nearby destinations in South East Asia in our itineraries. We are working closely with our local distribu- tion partner TIRUN Travel Marketing on group pricing, new products, market segmentation and culinary designs. We are also working with tour operators, hotels and airlines to create dynamic packages with the component of cruising so that the packages, on the whole, sound affordable and attractive to customers.
Unfortunately, there is not much money being spent by the cruise lines on educating the travel agents about cruise holidays. This needs to be done collectively by travel stakeholders. However, this can only happen once there is some growth in the cruise market. Also, there is no global GDS for cruising products. Thus, there is no aggregator for cruise products and this has to be tackled.