NEWS THE INTERVIEW
Watch the full interview with Peter Deer at:
go.travelweekly.co.uk/webcasts
Customer demand Despite the negative press the sector has received, Deer says he is confident of returning to long-term growth, pointing to pent-up demand among Fred Olsen’s predominantly over-50s customer base. “You would think, given the gov-
ernment advice about the 50-pluses, that there’s a concern about travelling. But we’re not seeing that at all,” he says. “We’re actually seeing that our
guests want to go cruising and they are saying ‘we’ve had enough of sitting in our homes and we kind of accept that life has got to move on’.” Describing 2021 bookings as
“really strong”, he adds: “I think most people are thinking that 2020 is a bit of a write-off really from a travel perspective. But for next year, they’re saying ‘we definitely want to go cruising’. They think by then, everything will be more resolved.” It is this demand and a belief in cruising’s ability to overcome its
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immediate challenges that gave Fred Olsen the confidence to add capacity during the crisis, Deer says. “We believe in cruising in the long
term in the UK and that was really the starting point for me,” he says. “As a business we said, ‘what is
the long-term future of cruising?’ We believe it will carry on and grow for many years. We have a few challenges today, but if you look outside of those challenges, what you’ve seen over the last 10 or 15 years is huge growth in terms of guest numbers. And I believe in five to 10 years’ time, we’ll see lots of growth again.” Deer adds: “As a cruise line which
hasn’t grown much in the last few years, this was a great opportunity to grow our capacity and actually take some market share. So we worked really hard to do it at this stage.” He says the demise in July of
ex-UK specialist Cruise & Maritime Voyages was “really sad” but believes Fred Olsen is well-placed to appeal
to its former passengers. He says CMV offered a more budget-style of cruising but both lines shared a small-ship ethos.
Trade support Key to turning this confidence into results will be trade support, and Deer says Fred Olsen’s commitment to agents will only increase. As part of its response to the
pandemic, the operator reduced its head office workforce from 220 to around 150, with its sales and marketing teams among those affected. However, Deer insists the move is
no reflection of its desire to support the trade, and says he hopes there will come a time when some of those who have departed could return. “It doesn’t mean that we don’t
want to have strong travel trade support; in fact, we want stronger travel trade support,” he says. “Throughout this whole pause
of operations, we’ve tried to support
travel agents with the difficulties they have faced by managing the refunds or managing customers’ expectations. “We’ve kept a high number of
our staff employed – we could have put many of them on furlough – to make sure that our guest services can manage the whole process, from customers, to the travel agent, through to us, efficiently.” Deer adds: “And where the guest
has decided to cancel, we’ve still paid the commissions based on what we think was fair to the travel agent.” Confirming that it would be
“very likely” that agents will be able to experience “one or two days” on board Bolette and Borealis when they come into service, Deer says trade partnerships will be more important in the future than ever. “Our sales avenues should be
really wide and the travel trade is one big way of selling for us,” he says. “Now we’ve got two new ships, we want them to support us even more.”
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