- 6th rivercruise conference hosts 6 ships
- 350 delegates hear rivercrusie needs to be more sexy
- But don’t forget the grandparents, says Da Vinci
The 350 delegates at the sixth CLIA River Cruise conference in Amsterdam could visit six ships moored at Amsterdam Cruise Port.
Giles Hawke of Cosmos and Avalon Waterways and formerly of MSC said river cruise can learn from the ocean sector’s mistakes and needs to be more sexy. “This is the year that river cruise is going to blast off. We are probably about 10 years behind the ocean sector, but we can catch up really quickly. We need to continue to develop our products from active cruises, cycling and city breaks to take river cruising across a broader age group families can become a bigger opportunity for us and bring it into the mind set of more people to make river cruising a little more sexy. There’s a big earning opportunity. Most river cruises have an inclusive element,
and when you look at what’s included it’s a fantastic and big earning opportunity for agents. Cruise lines need to work hard is to differentiate between each other. Because the ships are pretty much the same size, same length and same width, it can be difficult to make the ships look very different. It is important that we communicate our key USPs to sell them well and so customers are able to understand the difference between each cruise line. Just talking about service and food is not enough, all the river cruise lines deliver that so we have to find more other things that are unique to talk about. We need to more do a lot more with technology and provide more online training, better pricing, give you better research tools and there’s a big technology opportunity for us.
Grandparents took a bit of kicking at the conference, according to Michael Bowers of Shearings Holidays speaking to visitors on board river cruise ship Da Vinci: It is good to attract a broader market but many of our guests are retired and grandparents, and we love them. They are the core of our business. They are not boring, they are full of interest and love new destinations. We are all going to be living longer, working longer and taking holidays for longer so if some cruise lines don’t want your grandparents, we’ll have them!”
Edie Rodriguez, chief executive officer of Crystal Cruises, suggested there was ‘finally an ultra-luxury brand in the river marketplace, Crystal is the world’s only ultra-luxury river cruise line. We are attracting the age 40 bracket, so we have lowered the age demographic and 50pc of our guests are new to river cruise. We offer an all-suite, all-butler service and the largest spa on the river. We have TVs behind mirrors in our bathrooms and Toto toilets for your tushi. Our 32ft Wider speedboat allows our VIP guests to sail off and propose to their future wife or spend a romantic evening away from it all. This is not your grandparents’ river cruise by any stretch of the imagination.”
