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As the former boss of P&O Australia and Carnival Australia, Gavin Smith spent five years developing the country’s best-known cruise lines. After leaving Carnival Australia in 2007 to join Jetset Travelworld Group, Smith was lured back to the cruise sector to head up Royal Caribbean’s Australian operation.

With a new Australian office and the Rhapsody of the Seas sailing out of Australia during summer, Royal Caribbean made no secret of its desire to eat into the marketshare of P&O and Princess Cruises. RCI’s associate vice president international, Magnus Wrahme, even said last year Royal Caribbean would look to break the “duopoly”. Smith wouldn’t go that far, but he was realistic about the challenge ahead.

“Look, the Carnival business here is a substantial material business that puts a lot of money into the agent community, and they work well retail groups and wholesalers, but all agents want to offer an alternative,” he told Travel Today. “We’ve been very well received, but our challenge is having enough people on the ground. “We’re probably only
dealing with half of the 3800- odd travel agents out there at the moment.” Royal Caribbean set up its own Australian office late last year after previously using general sales agent Discover the World Marketing in the local market. Smith said the change had given the company flexibility with its pricing, a key to getting a foothold in the local market.
“With a GSA you receive the pricing from Miami, then you publish the pricing. It’s not a real consultative process,” he said. “Previously we would publish a full season price and hope that everyone would book it. But the consumer was watching it and they never saw it move.” Incentives such as bonus onboard credits were now in place to help boost sales, he said.

Smith said the focus for the coming season would be to continue to tweak its onboard product to cater to Australians. He said plans are in place for the Rhapsody of the Seas to move to Australian dollar pricing onboard “once we get critical mass of Australians on the ship”. And he would continue to lobby head office for the ship to be deployed for a longer season in Australia
Source: Michael Bruce

This is very big news and I am sure will be well received by members of Oz Cruise Club. Once Royal Caribbean move to Australian pricing on Board it makes the choice to book ROS a very tempting one.
A Royal Caribbean feature over many other cruise operators is that they offer your deposit back should you cancel, the only drawback previously with booking on Rhapsody was having to pay in USD while on board, it will soon be a thing of the past along with prices that were once advertised in USD.

Recently good pricing on Rhapsody cruises has many talking as it is possible to book a Rhapsody cruise cheaper than a comparable one on the Pacific Sun.

Royal Caribbean will seek to extend the Australian season for Rhapsody of the Seas as the cruise line continues to grow its presence in the local market.

Gavin Smith, Royal Caribbean International’s managing director – Australia, told Travel Today he would like to see the ship stay longer in Australia, possibly by as early as 2011 or 2012.

“There is a competitive tension within a cruise line for its assets,” Smith said. “Royal Caribbean is operating in a dozen countries and each of them would like more modern ships or more ships.” He said it was up to the Australian management team to show head office the market could handle an extended season, a consultative process that was currently underway. “We need to communicate what revenue we can achieve to justify that deployment,” Smith added.

He would like to see Rhapsody of the Seas arrive “earlier in the Spring” and extend its stay by a couple of weeks.

The Rhapsody of the Seas is currently only based Down Under during Summer. It then heads to Alaska the Northern Summer season.

A fortnight ago, RCI’s Australian office posted its best ever week of bookings.

Source - by Michael Bruce, Travel Today

With a new brochure just out, new itineraries, new offices and new ships to come, Royal Caribbean is ramping up for another great cruise season and says there’s definitely a renewed focus on Australians.

Despite most tightening spend on travel, the cruising industry appears to not only be holding up, but still growing year-on-year. As such Royal Caribbean have committed themselves to the market, and since last December has seen a regional office open in Australia.

“This journey started on December the 8th, when the Discover the World marketing franchise’s cruise arm was acquired by Royal Caribbean... they [head office] felt at the time the organisation in Australia was reaching a critical mass,” said Gavin Smith, Royal Caribbean Managing Director.

“We were attracting enough Australians to the brands to warrant that investment,” he continues. “There are now some 40 employees split between two offices, one in North Sydney with the commercial operations and a call centre located up in Gosford.”

“We doubled the number of [Australian] passengers carried in 2008 when compared to 2007, and we’re looking to do the same again in 2009.”

After settling into the office, Royal Caribbean and its main brands of Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Cruises have many projects on the agenda for the industry, already Celebrity Cruises have launched their new 2009-2010 cruising brochure which features the brand new Equinox ship.

Equinox will launch in July this year and will sail the Mediterranean, originally slated for Europe and the Caribbean, a last minute shuffle seas it focusing more now on ten and eleven day itineraries from Rome.

While Celebrity has no plans for Australia in their recently released itineraries, it is encouraging that Royal Caribbean is confident of a future in Australia.

This follows on from the highly successful Feel Special campaign launched in conjunction with the new brochure of Royal Caribbean two weeks ago.

In fact, Royal Caribbean thinks the campaign was the reason that it saw its best sales week last week where bookings broke records on the back of a quadrupling of call-ins.

Royal Caribbean International carries some four million passengers a year globally.

Source = e-Travel Blackboard: W.X