NEWS — SPECIAL REPORT
Agents and Carnival bosses enjoy dinner on Carnival Breeze
CAMP OCEAN: NEW KIDS’ CLUB WILL BE ON FREEDOM FIRST
Carnival Cruise Lines is to introduce a marine-themed kids’ experience on its ships. Camp Ocean will be
introduced first on Carnival Freedom on May 24. The attraction is aimed at
Carnival’s Iain Baillie (left), Luke Smith (fourth left), Lynn Torrent and Adolfo Perez (second right) host VIP agents in Miami
Demand: ‘It’s not as robust as I’d like’
More needs to be done across the industry to help drive demand and combat low pricing, a Carnival Cruise Line boss said. Lynn Torrent, executive vice-
president of sales and guest services, said agents and cruise lines needed to work together to increase demand. Torrent said the market wasn’t
as robust as she would have liked and that the US was becoming a lot more like the UK in being “promotionally orientated”. A combination of lots of capacity, low prices and high fuel costs were making for some “interesting circumstances”, she said. Carnival was 17% up year on
year during the wave period in January and Torrent believes the brand’s perception has almost recovered after a fire on Carnival
Deployment: Carnival Corp looks at all ships
Carnival Cruise Lines is unlikely to join three of its sister lines in sailing in Asia, but the possibility has not been ruled out. Lynn Torrent, executive vice-
president of sales and guest services, said that in parts of the Caribbean there were too
Lynn Torrent: ‘US is becoming more promotionally orientated’
Triumph in February last year. “At a time in the marketplace
where overall demand isn’t as robust as we’d like, there’s lots of capacity and our brand is still a little bit bruised – it leads to some interesting circumstances,” she said. “Despite all of that, we have
many lines trying to book slots at the same ports and they were “tripping over each other”. Asked by Paul Frost, of Jetline
Holiday Group, whether Carnival Cruise Lines would consider moving into the Asian market, Torrent said the prospect was being considered from a Carnival Corporation perspective. She said: “For the Carnival Cruise Lines brand, we’re not sure. It takes a huge investment to do
had a record January for bookings, a very strong February, but as we are moving on, it is getting tough because of the consumer deals.” However, Torrent said brands that had never advertised on TV before had started doing so in the US, and that even Carnival was adopting strategies it had not done before, such as promotional offers for US customers. “We will look back on this year and learn from a lot of the things we have done, which are really outside our comfort zone,” she said. “Some things I thought we would never do but we are.” Iain Baillie, head of sales for the UK and Ireland, said he was looking to work closely with agents to help boost demand. His team is considering holding webinars and roadshows for agents.
children aged between two and 11 years old and will include more than 200 ocean-inspired activities and games, such as sea creature discovery and marine life quizzes. Children will also be able to design an aquarium and make their own sail boats. Carnival expects more than 700,000 children to sail on its ships this year and the Camp Ocean development follows the announcement of the Seuss at Sea initiative, in partnership with Dr Seuss Enterprises. Camp Ocean will replace the line’s existing Camp Carnival programme and children will be put into age groups, with two to five-year-olds called ‘penguins’, six to eight-year- olds ‘stingrays’ and nine to 11-year-olds sharks’. A Camp Ocean play area is being installed on Carnival Freedom, which is currently undergoing a multimillion- dollar revamp. The attraction will be
introduced on Carnival Magic, Carnival Breeze and Carnival Triumph later this year. Carnival Vista, which debuts in 2016, and all other ships will have the space by the end of 2016.
something like that. We look at it from a Carnival Corporation perspective, so currently Costa Cruises, Princess Cruises and Aida Cruises are in the Far East. “At this point there are no
plans for Carnival Cruise Lines to do that, but never say never, because we are a big brand and it can transcend lots of markets.” Carnival Corporation’s 10
brands include Cunard, Holland America Line and P&O Cruises.
1 May 2014 —
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