Hello and welcome to the 2018 liveblog from the State of the Industry panel from Seatrade Cruise Global.
The event is set to begin at 0930 eastern time.
Here’s some general info about it:
Archived Live Blog:
And that’s it from the keynote. I’ll be headed to the floor for a bit and then to the Crystal one in a bit.
Thank you for following.
Prothero “We can sell that cruise to the German market along and it would sell out.”
Prothero “We have designed our ships to fit through the St Lawrence seaway. That itinerary would start at the Ritz in Montreal and end at the Ritz in Chicago.”
Prothero “In most of out turnaround ports there will be a Marriott luxury brand.”
McAlpin “we hope to go on sale at the end of the year.”
Prothero “A year in between builds but looking to reduce it. We don’t go on sale until May.”
McAlpin “We may arrive later and stay later in ports. Obviously we will be in the Caribbean. We will provide options.”
McAlpin “We will avoid having 4-5 ships in port. “
Prothero “We will put a lot of focus on the south east of Caribbean, not the major ports.”
McAlpin “First ship is out of Miami”
Prothero “We on a constantly sailing itinerary. We do have some larger port for turnaround but our focus is on niche locations.”
Prothero “No show lounge onboard. Bring in a local chef, or bring in local arts community onboard in a more closed in setting.”
McAlpin “We think about using technology for onboard entertainment in a not so creepy way.”
McAlpin “we thought about taking 2,700 guests to Necker Island every week but Richard didn’t like that Idea.”
McAlpin “Yes we will have a casino.”
Prothero “No casino, no submarine. We do have a big superyacht marina. Will look with partners in our ports to provide additional equipment.”
McAlpin “We’re investing in out people, investing in our culture.”
McAlpin “culture is really important. We believe in the Virgin culture.”
Discussing their new offices that they just moved to.
Prothero “This is exciting for both of us but a similar challenge as well.”
McAlpin “I’ve come to a conclusion that something happens when you put kids and water together. You don’t have a good time at a pool with kids and roving packs of teens.”
McAlpin “By doing adult only we know it’ll be risky”
McAlpin “you’re not going to see broadway shows on our ships. It’s going to be different. It’ll be adult by design.”
McAlpin “We spent two years going over cabin prototypes”
McAlpin “You have alot of the yacht styles on there to make it feel special and sexy. So when you see that ship anywhere int he world you say “That’s a virgin ship” “
McAlpin “The original idea was to build 2, 4,500 pax ships. Our ship we think is the right size. “
McAlpin “We’ve dissected the entire customer experience and how do you create a different experience. Virgin Cruises is too easy so we chose Voyage.”
Prothero “This is a different type of ship…….and free wifi”
Prothero “All balcony ship. We created a duplex suite for the lower deck suites.”
Prothero “We’re replicating a yachtie lifestyle”
McAlpin “8% of those who said they’d never go on a cruise would go on a Voyage based on the Virgin brand.”
McAlpin “Most of the 25 million cruises would go on a Virgin voyage based on branding and expectation alone. “
McAlpin “We are not trying to be a disrupter for the travel industry. We think of this as creating a new travel experience.”
McAlpin “We’re creating a culture in the company. An epic seachange for all”
McAlpin “It’s about listening to the guests. On The World it’s all Type A personalities.”
Prothero “You might see a jacket in the evening and not see flip flops or bikini’s in the dining room.”
Prothero “We know from our research guests will come from three sources, our current database, luxury cruisers and folks who have never taken a cruise.”
Prothero “It was a long journey here.”
Prothero “It speaks to our audience. There are a lot of intimate spaces. There are 5 dining spaces. And only 4 spaces onboard for all guests at once.”
Prothero “What is it that the Ritz Carlton cruiser wants. We knew we were going to build a yacht. “
This will cover the new entrants to the Industry in Virgin Voyages and Ritz-Carlton.
Now Tom McAlpin and Douglas Prothero to the stage
And that’s it for the top 4
Donald “what’s going to keep me up at night is the Porthole party.” (still waiting for my invite)
Del Rio “I’m fortunate I have 30,000 employees that take care of our guests. I’m very bullish on the long term.
What keep me up at night are the things I can’t control. So while we take short term bruises the future is bright.”
Vago “We are in the shipping business 365 days a year and 24/7.” (True shipping guy there!!)
Fain “Realizing how the world has changed. And how the pace of change has changed. What will people want in 10 years is difficult. We are spending billions in that. It’s what our guests want and what our crew wants.”
What keeps you up at night?
Donald “We have to create demand. We can just build it and it’ll fill up.”
Fain “I don’t think ships will get bigger”
Fain “we have resisted the urge to homogenized ourself. Each brand is very discrete. “
Vago “We will design the World class we will have to design somethign that will be around in 2030. We have to envisage what they want. And Richard keeps beating himself” (with Oasis class.) Fain “Hey I need competition” (huge round of applause )
Donald “Our philosophy is all about the guests. It’s about a personal experience. People what things customized to them.
That includes ship design. “Dodging questions as to how much bigger ships are going to get.
Del Rio “no idea is absurd anymore.”
Del Rio “My 10 year old grand kids said they want a race track, so I went to Robin Lindsey our head of design, and we built a race track.”
Fain “When I started to get involved with ship design, I really had to fight tooth and nail for new concepts”
Fain ” (celebrity) Edge really shows the innovation that we can bring to the industry”
Vago “The idea of Seaside was that I designed it with the yard so that when all the ships are alongside in Miami people will go and say “what the hell is that?!” “
Fain “We have adjusted out designs so they meet what people want today. Our satisfaction rates is amongst the highest in the company history.”
Fain “Cruising has become mainstream”
Donald “if you look at statistics there were more terror attacks 10 years ago than today. As long as there isn’t a large part of the world that is taken out of capacity it shouldn’t be a problem.”
Donald “We make sure we keep guests and crew safe.”
Donald “If you go over time, there’s always places that you shouldn’t travel to.”
Vago “They know that we cater to our passengers” saying people visit particular area through a cruise to places they wouldn’t feel comfortable going to in the first place.
Del Rio “our customers trust us. We aren’t going to take them to a place that’s not safe. We can move ships from one place to another. We can’t wait for the eastern med to come back”
Del Rio “It’s gotta be save for us to go in the navigational sense and the experiences. Shore excursions are a big money maker.” (Del Rio all about the finances 🙂 )
Del Rio “We’re good partners. There are more ports encouraging us to go there than don’t want us”
Greenberg “43 ports challenged from the hurricane season this year” (including two in my place of residence)
Fain “it’s an opportunity to work with the local community. We work with them and find solutions that are to both of our benefits”
Donald “UNESCO was considering delisting Dubrovnik so Donald and Vago met with the mayor and came up with a strategy”
Vago “We control the flow. We can control the embarking of pax”
Vago “I don’t think there is a thing about overtourism.”
Fain “We are less relaxed today that we were a year ago because we see the potential.”
Fain “Theres a misnomer of the word Over Tourism. What we’re really talking about is doing it better.”
Donald “we need to listen to ports and make sure they have the infrastructure. Our guests don’t want to go to places that are overcrowded”
Donald “I think the top line story, what we’ve been doing for years, is what we need to keep doing. The concept of over tourism.”
Donald “CLIA said that millennial’s overindex cruising”
Greenberg mad a bad joke about not know what millennials want .… ugh
Del Rio “The baby boomers are still the vast source of demand, but 25% of pax are millennial. “
Del Rio “Business is really strong. Keep it going”
Greenberg “You know that quote is going to haunt you”
Donald “Every market is under penetrated.”
Donald “A cuban born can now go to and from Cuba by sea”
Donald “We think its great for normalizing relations. We were able to get a restriction changed.”
Switching over to Cuba.
Del Rio “We’re doubling Cuba capacity. The new Government restrictions had very little impact. “
Vago “I think China has a great potential. There are geopolitical issues around the world. If we can reduce the cabotage laws in China we can have a greater boom “
Vago “We want to become global. We have the leadership in Europe.”
Vago “We will triple our passengers in the next 10 years.”
Vago “We have 11 ships on the order book. We are in the second phase of the company”
Fain “People say we move too much. Most industries aren’t able to move like that.”
Fain “We’re amazing good at creating something that wasn’t there before. China’s a good example.”
Greenberg “Every yard is just about operating at 100%”
Donald “China’s probably going to be the largest market in the world.”
Donald “The demand is there we just have to remember how small we are”
Del Rio “The guests like it and the ships are full. Now we need to work on the yield.”
Del Rio “China’s stable. It’s still a work in progress. We see it as a long term investment.”
Royal Caribbean’s Richard Fain def got the largest applause.
Peter Greenberg now in stage. And introducing the 4 CEO’s
Announcement that next year they will be relocating Seatrade to Miami!!! FINALLY. New dates are in April too!
Cindy’s now off, Peter Greenberg is about to take to the stage with the CEO’s
Cindy is talking about future initiatives to part with group to advance sustainability.
16 LNG fueled ships are on order. With testing of fuel cells currently onboard ships today.
They’re projecting 1.8 billion billion travels (incl all sectors). Up from 1.2 billion this year
in 2018, we’re expected to welcome 27 million pax onboard CLIA ships.
Cruise ships recycle 60% more than that same person on land.
Because we’re at sea, we must be more efficient effective and mindful (of the environment)
Cindy is comparing Cruising to Apple creating the computer. They both were ambitious and started around the same time…..not sure I agree.
Cruising is responsible for contributing 126 billion usd to local economies.
Cindy D’Aoust, CLIA’s CEO now on stage.
Video going over the construction of Mercy Global. Mercy Ships latest flagship.
Andrew with UBM now on stage. They’re the media production company responsible for throwing this event.
Video now playing showing executives talking about how they got into the industry
(Right next to a speaker…this should be fun)
Announcement that the program will begin shortly.
Pretty decent seats this year. Second row but all the way to the side.
Made it inside the terminal. I think this is the Princess terminal in Port Everglades. Just waiting to be seated.