Focus on ancillary revenue
Ancillary Revenue is as crucial to ferries as it is to airlines. Richard Williams asks two major ferry operators about their AR strategies
A ferry good way to up revenue
With fuel prices rising, airlines are not alone in seeking to maximise AR. We asked two ferry operators about their approach to Ancillary Revenue and customer loyalty and what lessons could be learned
P&O Ferries
Simon Johnson is passenger services director at P&O Ferries. The company has services across the North Sea, English Channel and Irish Sea, and
carries close to ten million passengers a year. Simon is also a board director of the Passenger Shipping Association and Institute of Tourism.
Brittany Ferries Stephen Tuckwell is director communications & Portsmouth Port Operations at Brittany Ferries. BF have a number of popular ferry routes to France
and Spain from the UK and Ireland. Stephen was with BA from 1969 to 1988 in various overseas roles and head of marketing for Gulf Air 1999- 2001, joining BF in 2006.
Airline AR can broadly be divided into four categories: à la carte features; commission- based products; frequent-flyer activities; and advertising revenue. Is the airline model applicable to ferry companies? SJ: There's a lot in common but our scope on board is far more extensive given the sheer scale of our ships. Our equivalent of long-haul services are our 12-hour overnight routes to Holland and Belgium. We encourage early check-in so that people enjoy the ship's facilities to the full, as our AR on board comes from bars, restaurants, shops, cinemas, gaming and currency exchange. At the other end of the scale is our
90-minute Dover - Calais service. The pressure to hold prices down is intense so AR needs to be maximised during the short passage time, be that Club class upgrades,
This page: Brittany Ferries offers a mix of dining and leisure opportunities on its UK to France and Spain routes
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www.onboardhospitality.com
priority boarding and disembarkation, or the wider on-board proposition. We're not as exposed to fuel costs as the airlines but even so, the proportion of our costs going on fuel has risen alarmingly. ST: For us freight accounts for about 25% of revenue. The other sources are: passenger ticket sales (58%) and on-board sales (17%). We also have a thriving loyalty club called Club Voyage with about 32,000 members comprising mainly those with second homes in France or Spain. We do not sell commission-based products, nor do we sell advertising space on board that
is not linked with our boutiques, e.g. make-up or perfumes (we are the third largest retailer of perfume in France).
Which, if any, of the above categories have potential for growth in your operation? SJ: We're constantly testing the market by running a change to some aspect of one ship in the fleet, and seeing how it performs. We then roll out the trial or rein it in as appropriate. We have to listen to our customers and question what we're doing constantly. Generally, we are moving from an old duty
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