THE Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) is looking to be “more robust” in Asia, according to president and CEO, Christine Duffy.
“With Carnival Corporation having this footprint in Asia, we’re looking at how CLIA can be more robust and engage the travel agencies in the region, providing education, training and certification and working with them to promote cruising to consumers through various activities. In North America, for example, we do a national cruise vacation week, and this is being embraced in the UK and Australia,” she said.
Seventy-six per cent of all cruises are booked through travel consultants, she added.
CLIA is also looking at certification programmes for the trade in Asia and Australia. It runs six certification programmes in North America, is rolling out a programme for Europe and is considering a global programme.
“Our metrics show that travel agencies certified by CLIA have higher cruise sales,” she said.
Currently, CLIA has “someone here (Singapore)” and works with the Asia Cruise Association. “We are looking at how we may evolve that, with Carnival Corporation having this footprint in Asia. You will see and hear more from us in terms of how we can further engage travel agencies here.”
Deputy chair of CLIA in Australia and Carnival Australia CEO, Ann Sherry Ao, said: “A lot of materials have already been developed for travel agencies in other markets that we think we could help agencies in this part of the world. There is a lot of benefit for the agency if you know the product well, understand how to sell it, how to link it to air and other forms of holidays. Cruising has made many agents from other parts of the world more profitable.”
Anthony Kaufman, SVP commercial affairs of Princess Cruises, encouraged Asian agencies to jump on board now. “As we expand rapidly, there is a big opportunity for travel consultants who really want to learn about cruising early on and create the space for themselves to become experts,” he said.
Duffy pointed that that the cruise market penetration in the US of 3.4 per cent (i.e. 3.4 per cent of its population takes a cruise) translated to 10 million cruise passengers. “If you think of that level of penetration for Asia, given your population, the potential is 40 million passengers – just imagine.”
