COMMENT IN MY OPINION
Let me declare at the outset – I love the cruise sector and I adore
cruising. But, from a marketing stance, I’m also fascinated by the challenges the sector faces.
Cruise has been the poster child of
the travel industry for the past decade. It had growth that the rest of the industry could only dream of. Massive investment, new product development and inspirational innovation have been its hallmarks. But growth is slowing. The sector has, or is about to, hit a glass ceiling. Recruiting new customers is posing a problem. The ‘yet-to-cruise’ audience can be divided into two groups. First, those that have taken a position on cruising. You know the type: “I’ll do that when I’m 70” or “I can’t bear the idea of being stuck on a ship”. They take 30 years to recruit, yet once they have cruised they are usually converts. The second group are those for whom cruising is simply not on their radar. They are into adventure, wellness, hiking or something else. So how does cruise break through that glass ceiling?
Cruise promotion If you look at how the sector promotes itself, it does so, with one or two exceptions, almost entirely with messages about ships and onboard features. And that strategy has been brilliant for the past decade or more. But that approach may not necessarily
resonate with the yet-to-cruise market – if it did, this group wouldn’t exist. Perhaps it’s time for the cruise industry to take a fresh approach in
Cruising should take a bite of the Apple
Sector needs a new approach to capture the yet-to-cruise market
STEVE DUNNE
EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN, BRIGHTER GROUP
marketing to a new audience. If cruise wants to break through the glass ceiling it has to redefine its proposition.
Apple’s strategy Many brands and sectors have opened up a whole new market by redefining their proposition. Take Apple, for example. Little more than a decade ago it was just another PC company. But Apple made a decision to redefine its proposition to open new markets. It remained a technology firm but a consumer one. It approached new-product development differently: appealing to untapped markets in a way that was not about technology but about other motivations. As a result, one-third of those that bought an Apple Mac had never owned a PC before. Apple didn’t invent the MP3 player but with the iPod it redefined the downloadable music market by deciding, through iTunes, to distribute content as well as facilitate its consumption.
And with the development of the iPhone the parallels with what cruise must do are even more obvious. Until the launch of iPhone, phone companies saw themselves as hardware providers – focusing on features of the handset. Apple entered the market seeing itself as a software provider, enabling people’s lives through apps – and that resonated. Apple didn’t plan to progress from
iPod to iPhone and then iPad. But it did have a vision to become more consumer-focused, appealing to motivations and feelings rather than emphasising hardware features. For cruise, thinking about a different
proposition may be tough, particularly when it has had such a successful past strategy. But to get to that yet-to- cruise sector, a new approach may just help it break through that glass ceiling.
FOR MORE COLUMNS BY STEVE DUNNE, GO TO
TRAVELWEEKLY.CO.UK
32
travelweekly.co.uk 15 October 2015
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96