The cruise industry is a rare niche within the tourism sector that has largely withstood the trend of customers booking online without help from travel agents.
A 2015 Port of Vancouver survey of the city’s cruise passengers found that two-thirds used a travel agent to book their vacation.
In contrast, an April report on Statistic Brain, which used data from eTrack, eMarketer and Alexa.com, found that 57% of all travel reservations are made online.
The comparatively high percentage of cruise passengers using travel agents highlights the influence that those professionals have. It also bodes well for Vancouver, given that the city just finished hosting the world’s largest gathering of cruise-industry travel agents: the Cruise Lines International Association annual conference.
Beautiful weather showcased the city during the June 1-6 conference, which included an information session with presentations from Vancouver tourism bodies to inform the travel agents about popular local sights.
Port of Vancouver cruise services manager Carmen Ortega attended a session that discussed the role of travel agents in the cruise sector.
“What was eye-opening for me was how different cruising is from other travel modes,” she said. “One of the luxury cruise lines said more than 90% of their guests use travel agents.”
Ortega believes customers are more likely to book flights and hotels online than they are to book cruises online because they’re more apprehensive about what the ship might look like and what room they might be given.
Travel agents at the convention had the opportunity to board some docked cruise ships to learn about layout and amenities.
“When you book a cruise, you’re not just booking transportation,” Ortega said. “You’re booking an experience.”
Travel agencies help customers tailor that experience by offering charters that are specifically for different demographics.
One seven-night Holland America cruise, for example, leaves Vancouver for California on September 25 and has been reserved by a company named Olivia and is marketed to lesbians. Olivia marketing material notes that Vancouver's Sarah McLachlan will be the headline entertainer.
The conference was also helpful for executives and staff at Vancouver-based Expedia CruiseShipCenters (ECSC), which franchises cruise-sector travel agencies.
(Image: Expedia CruiseShipCenters CEO Matthew Eichhorst stands in front of a wall mural in his company's new Vancouver office | submitted)
President Matthew Eichhorst told Business in Vancouver that one high point at the conference was seeing Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (NYSE:RCL) president and chief operating officer Adam Goldstein give a 40-minute presentation on the state of the industry.
“There’s something like 80 new ships already scheduled to be built in the next five to seven years,” Eichhorst said.
“That’s a 35% increase just in capacity alone. So we’re in quite an accelerated-investment time given that the industry itself only grew 9.5% in the past five years.”
Eichhorst’s company last fall moved 143 employees into a new 28,000-square-foot office in the Oceanic Plaza building on West Hastings Street.
That space is nearly triple the 10,000 square feet that it had occupied across the street, in the Guinness Tower. Since the move the company has added about 15 new employees and is continuing to hire, said Eichhorst, who is a former BIV Forty under 40 winner.
ECSC’s franchisee growth is also accelerating. The company has approximately 200 franchisees with 25 more in development. Three-quarters of those franchisees are in Canada.
“By 2020, we’ll have 500 franchisees total with about 300 in the U.S. and 200 in Canada. So it’s 33% growth in the next five years in Canada but significantly higher growth in the U.S.” •