Lessons from the Cruise Industry, specifically the Navigator of the Seas

Some lessons or reminders from Royal Caribbean's Navigator of the Seas

1 - Service design - have you taken a good look at your tourism service (all tourism businesses are service businesses) from the guests' point of view?  That's what the cruise industry seems to be doing very well. My wife and I commented how Royal Caribbean had thought of everything on the cruise we took with the family during the Holidays (see below). To analyze and assess the quality of your service, take a walk in your potential guests' shoes, from the moment they arrive, to the moment they leave. How can you make their experience better? Where are the fail points, if there are any. From the friendliness of the concierge staff (if you manage a hotel) to the cleanliness of the facilities, to the quality and variety of the food, etc.

2 - Animation/Entertainment.  Not everyone thinks of their tourism business as an entertainment business, but almost any tourism business could be considered an entertainment business, even if the entertainment is provided by the guests themselves. If you provide the right environment, in say, a restaurant, the patrons will entertain themselves accordingly. The obvious example is a club. If the decor and facilities are right and the music and the sound system rock, the drinks are good and at the right price (according to the type of establishment), the guests should have a good time.  In the era of social media there has been a lot of talk and much has been written about being remarkable, about creating products and services that are outstanding, because those are the things that drive conversations in cyberspace. That's great. But the key reason to strive for the extraordinary is to succeed.

3 - Staff. As important as everything else, if not more. One of the amazing things we noticed and commented about the staff on the Navigator of the Seas is that everyone seemed to have the same critical competency for tourism: a genuine love for people and a relentless customer satisfaction orientation. Almost anyone can learn how to wait tables or serve drinks or register a guest or clean up a room, but to, at the very least, give the impression of genuine caring for a guest, that's not so easy to find.

4 - FUN At many a tourism conference in Canada over the last 10 years, I heard different people mentioning the word fun. We have to put fun back in our tourism offerings. This is obvious for some destinations or businesses (e.g. Niagara Falls, The CN Tower), but fun is not only delivered by an attraction (e.g. Niagara's Fury attraction), it can be delivered by the ticket takers, the waiters, and others. During the cruise we had a bit of fun with the assistant waiter, Tayfan, a young man from Turkey, who was quite adept at magic tricks. Think of where in the path of your guests you can inject some fun (it can be little things, but they can make a big difference).

Royal Caribbean - 1.2.3.4  From the design of the ship to the selection of the staff, the Navigator of the Seas is a great example of all of the above.  The ship is huge. There were 3,670 guests on the ship (full capacity) and, I believe, about 1,200 staff. But you never felt crowded. Much thought (and experience) has been put into making the cruise a great experience for the guests. My guess is that this is a constant focus from the company (is it yours?). From the theatre, to the pool, to the food establishments to the animation staff to all other areas and activities Royal Caribbean has thought of all the different types of guests they can attract. Remember Bertrand Cesvet's engines of conversational capital? Royal Caribbean is very good at many of them - Exclusive Product Offering, Over-Delivery, Relevant Sensory Oddity and Tribalism.

Finally, the cruise also reminded me of something I have mentioned in a past blog post: that tourism is driven by PPE, Price, Proximity and Ease of Entry. The price for the 6 night cruise on the Navigator of The Seas can be as low as approximately $600 CDN per person (it's very difficult for any destination to compete with that considering everything that's included in the price). Over 60% of people on this trip were American. There about 180 Canadians on board followed by 80 Mexican guests and 80 UK guests. The rest were guests from various countries. The majority of Americans on board were Florida residents (my daughter met a young man travelling with his family. They live 15 minutes from the port in Fort Lauderdale. So remember, your most likely customers are those who live close or relatively close by (within province, nearby province or nearby country).

Think of your tourism business as theatre. The "show" is what will make your guests have a good (or not so good time). The "show" is what the guests come in contact, what they see, who they see and interact with. They should never be aware of what goes on behind the scenes (training, logistics, etc.), but it is the behind the scenes planning and support that can make the difference between something remarkable and something mediocre.

Happy travels,

Jaime

The best vacation: is it where you go, what you see or who you're with?

I hadn't been interested in a cruise vacation for over 25 years. I had only been on one cruise to the Caribbean and I didn't really like it. Mind you, I wasn't in the best state of mind at the time. Had just broken up with my girlfriend at the time and ended up going on this cruise with my Dad, my sister and her then husband. I was young and felt most of the people on the cruise where old (probably the age I am now and older). Met one young woman and hung out with her some of the time. I drank too much and ate too much in those 7 days. The ship was big, but I remember it's gym was tiny, it's library too. We also caught bad weather. I am not prone to sea sickness, so I was fine, but 30% of the guests missed Christmas dinner. There was bingo, and some shows, but I wasn't impressed and for more than 2 decades I would not even consider a cruise vacation.

Fast forward to last year, 2011. My sister turned 50 in December and her wish was that the family and some good friends get together on a cruise of the Caribbean. She did the research, spoke to an actual human being specialized in cruises at New Westminster Cruise Ship Center in Vancouver, and organized the whole trip to Miami and Fort Lauderdale. We were a party of 12, and on December 18, 2011, we got on board Royal Caribbean's Navigator of the Seas for a 6 day cruise with stops in Grand Cayman, Jamaica and Labadee, Haiti. In short, I've changed my mind about cruises. The trip was one of the best vacations I've ever taken. 

But before you think this blog post is an unabashedly endorsement of cruise vacations or Royal Caribbean, let me clarify, it is not. I highly recommend the cruise vacation, but with some caveats:

1) It's best if you travel with a group of people you really like, the more the merrier.
2) If you don't travel with a group, it's best if you are a social being - and I don't mean an avid Facebook user, but a good listener, conversationalist and you like being with and meeting new people.
3) If you choose a cruise trip for your Honeymoon, I don't understand you

The Cruise

I gather that the cruise industry and the ships themselves have changed enormously since I first went on that trip over 2 decades ago. For one, the trips are much more affordable than they used to be. And you get a lot more bang for your buck these days. There are many cruise lines and many more ships. The ships keep getting bigger and better (e.g. Navigator of the Seas, Allure of the Seas).  These are veritable mini-towns with malls, ice-skating rinks, theatres, restaurants, spas, rock climbing walls, swimming pools, night clubs, etc. There was more to do on the ship than we could possibly do. For the most part, we enjoyed the pool decks and the night life, since we were a fun bunch.

The Trip

This Navigator of the Seas cruise sailed from Fort Lauderdale. My sister had arranged for a van to pick us up at the hotel in Miami (a nice affordable hotel in Miami Beach called South Seas Hotel) and take us to Fort Lauderdale in time to board the ship. After a long, but moving well, line-up, we went through the formalities of checking in and went to our cabins, which were small, but clean and comfortable. One advantage of not having a balcony (only my sister had one), is that at night the cabin is absolutely dark, which contributed to excellent sleep. 

First stop was Grand Cayman.  We were all on a budget, so we decided not to go on excursions and tours, plus the younger ones in our party (all girls) just wanted to go to the beach. So we found a van to take us to the nearest public beach, where we spent the day. Not a spectacular beach, but pretty good for our purposes. The food was rather good and not expensive.

Second stop was Jamaica. Here we did want to go on a tour - specifically the tour of the water falls (Dunn's River Falls). We were excited to go, but alas, it was not to be. One thing you must know about cruise vacations is that you may not see some of the places the trip includes because of reasons beyond anyone's control. This time, it was the Sea. We arrived fine and the ship docked. But there were too many waves and after a couple of hours wait to see if the sea would calm down and allow us to disembark, the captain made the decision to leave Jamaica and spend the day at sea. While we were disappointed, none of  us was upset - just part of the experience. I personally love being at sea - one of my favourite things is to observe the ocean and listen to the sound of the waves the ship makes while cruising.

Third stop was Labadee, Haiti. Royal Caribbean owns this part of Haiti. It's a private island for its cruises. Beautiful spot. You can relax on the beach all day or take one of many tours (snorkeling, for example). RB has thought of everyone - there's zip lines, there's a market, the food is brought ashore from the ship and it's buffet style (the chicken and ribs were amazing), etc. Local musicians play at different times in various spots around the complex. There's a small water-park for the little ones. Ah, but there's 1 thing RB did not tell us about (or it was buried in fine print somewhere). The beach (or at least the part of the beach where we hung out) is riddled with sea urchins. The water wasn't deep, and I went in to do some snorkeling. I was walking into a deeper part when I stepped on "WTF was that!?" Yes, a sea urchin. I got 7 pieces of sea urchin thorns on my big toe. It stung like a m... Not 3 minutes later, my daughter also got stung. Fortunately for her she just caught the edge of the creature and got just 1 thorn. The good thing, it was my toe, so walking wasn't that hard. We went to the infirmary at the resort and waited for the nurse to come back from a call. He came back and we told him what had happened. Nothing to do, just soak your foot in warm water and vinegar when you get back to the ship and that's that. He sprayed vinegar on our injured feet and said "have a good day." Fortunately, after the initial sting, the pain was not bad enough to interfere with out fun (just don't press on the toe!). We stayed on the beach and near the bar pretty much until we had to go back to the ship at 5 pm.

From Labadee we headed back to Fort Lauderdale - about 24 hours at sea.

The Ship

We really liked the Navigator of the Seas. For one. It's big! This particular cruise was full: 3,677 passengers. One would think that it would feel like Grand Central Station at rush hour, but no, the ship's so big that you don't feel it crowded. Yes, at some functions and shows there were a lot of people, but just enough to feel lively, never really crowded to the point of annoyance. We really liked that. There were karaoke nights, disco nights, even a circus parade in the ships Mall. There were sales every night (silk ties and watches for $10 USD each!). 

The food

Ah, this is where you must be careful, lest you gain 15 lbs in 1 week as I did twenty some years ago. There's food all day, every day. The selection is very good and for all tastes and diets (pizza, hamburgers, chicken, salads, fruit, etc.) The formal dinners where quite good for the most part. And the staff (Custodio, Virgil and Tayfan) fantastic. Surely, the main competency to work on a cruise must be that you must like people.  For the record, I only gained 3 lbs on this vacation, including great Holiday dinners in Miami.

The staff

Dan, the Party Man, was the cruise director - and you can tell he does his job very well. His staff of entertainers and animators was excellent. One thing that Dan said at the introduction show is that for you to have the best time, you should let loose and participate - get into the spirit. And so we did to some extent. I sang at the karaoke night, my wife and I auditioned and won a spot on the Love and Marriage game in the theatre (a highlight of the cruise, because it's so funny), and I also participated on the "Sexiest Man" contest by the pool (I lost).

Conclusion. 

I would definitely go on a cruise again. In fact, I signed us up for a Royal Caribbean open booking, which means you make a US $100 deposit before you leave the ship and you have an open booking until you decide when and which cruise to take. The incentive? We will get up to $100 on board credit each for up to 3 cabins when we decide to book. I will only go with a group of people I really like.  With my wife only, we rather go to a resort or the cottage or to Europe. The one thing a cruise vacation has going for it is that you don't have to worry about cabs and carrying cash or your credit cards. Everything is there. If you travel with children or young people, like we did, you don't worry about where they are, because they must be on the ship. One of my nieces is going through a wild phase so she parties a lot. We did not have to worry about her being out late at night and whether she could get in trouble or not find a cab or whatever else you might worry about if she was - say partying in Cancún and she wasn't back at the hotel at 3 am. She was on the ship and if she needed help - someone on the staff would come to her aid. All in all this best vacation ever was mostly due to the people I traveled with, but the cruise experience provided the perfect environment for all of us to enjoy the trip without worries and without having to be all together all the time.

Lessons for tourism businesses.

I saw many lessons and reminders for the tourism industry as a whole while taking this cruise, but I will comment on these on my next blog post.

Happy travels,

Jaime

Ottawa Tourism gets creative with Holiday Wishes

Quirky Holiday message from my friends at Ottawa Tourism. I was away so I hadn't had a chance to post it. Good example of creative marketing.  

Kids ski lessons in Ontario ski area resorts north of Toronto

Kids ski lessons in Ontario ski area resorts north of Toronto:

Kids with helmets learn to ski in Ontario

Should Ski Helmets be mandatory in Canada?

If you go Skiing in Nova Scotia, You'll need a helmet!!
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty bought his own ski helmet — but said that he would not legislate helmets. Helmet use on Canadian ski hills has risen ...

See Ski Helmet Financial Post Blog

Kids learn to ski with helmets, why not wear them all the time as you grow up?

See Kids with helmets ski resort lessons near Barrie.

Canadian Tourism 2012

Will 2012 be a growth year for Canadian Tourism? What do you think? Given the global economic uncertainty, the European debt crisis, the ongoing weakness of the US economy plus presidential elections, the UK Olympics, and the high Canadian dollar, where do you see Canada's best prospects to have a good year in 2012? How are you preparing to navigate next year's challenges? What target markets will you focus on? How will your marketing strategy adapt?

Discuss on LinkedIn Canadian Tourism Professionals

Canada #1 in the Country Brand Index - yet not enough to be a compelling destination

For a 2nd year in a row, Canada tops the rankings of FutureBrand's Country Brand Index. It makes me very proud of Canada and it makes for lots of news headlines. The Canadian Tourism Commission is very happy and will milk the news in every conference this year.  Canada scores high in many reputation indices. The former champion in the United Nations' Human Development Index (several times # 1 in the early 90's), it now stands at number 6 (although the top ten countries are quite close in decimal points). Canada is also at # 6 in the 2010 Anholt-Gfk Roper Nation Brands Index.  Many of our cities rank high as the best cities for quality of life in the Mercer Consulting city rankings. The Economist ranks Vancouver as the best city in the world and Toronto as the 4th best.

I am unabashedly passionate about Canada. In spite of the many challenges we face as a country, in my opinion it is the best country in the world, the post-modern, post-nation state, 21st century country, the world is represented here. But, does all this good fortune translate into tourism growth? No. The evidence shows that it definitely translates into a huge demand for Canadian permanent residence and Canadian citizenship. At best the rankings help keep our tourism levels stable, at worst, the rankings may hurt tourism because they may reinforce the idea that Canada is great to live in, but perhaps not the most interesting or fun place for a vacation thereby instead of being a "we have to go to Canada this year" destination it becomes the "some day we'll go to Canada, it's a nice place" destination. We must note that Canada did not make the top ten in the Country Brand Index Tourism attribute (see http://www.campaignbrief.com/2011/11/futurebrand-releases-results-o.html).

If you work in or follow the Canadian tourism industry, you probably know that it's a $70 Billion industry and that we have faced many challenges to grow visits and revenue for the last 10+ years y (SARS, the War in Iraq, the weak US economy, 9/11 and its consequent security concerns, new foreign destination entering the competition, the visa imposed on Mexicans, the weakness in the EU economies, etc.).  Revenue from foreign visitors - which represents about 20% of all tourism revenue - has remained more or less stagnant in real terms (adjusted for inflation) for the last 10 years. But this is good! Given all the challenges, we would have expected a contraction. The reasons may be varied, but one important element is that for several years now, Canada has been focusing on high-yield visitors, those who stay longer and spend more money. Many of the US day-trippers that used to come in the late 90's and early 2000's are gone. But we have been welcoming more Europeans, Asians (particularly Chinese from mainland China and Chinese from Hong Kong), and Latin Americans. Most of these travelers stay longer than American visitors and spend a lot more on average than our southern neighbours.

Consider these dramatic facts:

Total visits to Canada from non-residents in 2001:  47,146,647!
Total international tourism receipts for 2001 in 2001 dollars: $12.6 Billion


Total visits to Canada from non-residents in 2010:  24,669,133!
Total international tourism receipts for 2010: $18.2 Billion

(sources: Worldbank data and StatsCan Advance Travel Information)

Once adjusted for inflation - more or less - international tourism receipts are pretty much the same, but with almost half the number of visitors!

While these numbers are a testament to the industry's resilience and creativity, it is still concerning that international visits continue a steady decline year over year and that our travel deficit continues to grow - Canadians took 43,200,559 trips abroad in 2001 and 53,619,581 trips in 2010.

Conclusion - we must be do a lot more to persuade Canadians to travel more in Canada and to attract more international tourists (particularly those who do not visas) including lobbying for a lifting of visa restrictions to Mexican visitors.

Comptoirs du eTourisme Marseille Travel Massive - DMOs, Bloggers and Digital Marketers working together.

Last week I participated in Marseille's #Travelmassive organized by my friend @claudebenard of Hotelitur. It was a fun and interactive chat among Keith Jenkins, blogger extraordinaire of VelvetEscape fame, the sweet and brilliant Fabienne Wintle of Untanglemyweb and myself. We connected to the event via Group Skype, and even thought we had a couple of technical glitches, we did have a great time. Our task was to address the question of how can digital marketers, travel bloggers, hoteliers and destination management organizations (DMOs) best work together? Not an easy topic to summarize because there are many variations on the theme. For example we talked about the different types of travel bloggers and their different objectives. A professional blogger working for a large organization (like Conde Nast, for example) would not have the same objectives that a blogger who does note depend on his or her blog to generate revenue. We commented as well on the different projects a digital marketer might encounter. Fabienne, for example specializes in assisting, training, educating and helping small tourism businesses in Australia on the various topics related to digital and social media marketing. Her challenges are very different than those a digital marketer/consultant working for a large DMO or a multi-national hotel chain might face.  Keith addressed the issue of fees for blogging - something that might have been taboo 2 years ago, but something that's very important. Some bloggers are quite happy with getting travel invitations from destinations and blogging about them without getting paid for this content hoping that they will generate revenue through advertising. Other bloggers are offering sponsored blog posts thereby getting fees per post.  Still other bloggers are now getting speaking fees at various conferences and events.

My conclusion after our very interesting chat is that there are great opportunities for bloggers, digital marketers, hoteliers and DMOs to work more effectively and strategically to achieve the ultimate goal - more satisfied visitors and guests.  One of the points we touched on was international collaborations wherein we could share our audiences with each other, offer a syndicate of bloggers (guest blog posts as well) to destinations, access our different networks to offer clients more bang for their marketing dollars - bring in our Facebook and Twitter followers.  For example, I offer my clients campaigns that include display advertising, blogging, tweeting, facebooking which reach Hispanic travellers everywhere. What if when I am pitching to them I can offer increased reach by offering them coverage from Keith who reaches another audience altogether. Destinations do this all the time with bloggers. A group of bloggers (Kim Mance, Wendy Perrin, and Shannon Hurst Lane), were invited to Toronto for Canada-e-Connect 2010 in Montreal. Since they  were going to be in Montreal, Ottawa invited them to visit there before or after the conference. So destinations and bloggers can reach out to each other to maximize social media and digital marketing opportunities. 

As for Travel Massive Marseille, I hope a group of us bloggers get together in Marseille in the near future under a strategic digital marketing plan from the DMO there. We can certainly get some traction in the blogosphere. En Français, in English y en Español.

Bon voyage,

Jaime

RIP Canada-e-Connect

I had the privilege of serving our Canadian Tourism Industry as a volunteer Chair of the national Canada-e-Connect eTourism Strategy Conference in 2009 and 2010. I also served in the advisory committee of CeC 2011, superbly chaired by Emmanuelle Legault and Joel Peters.  After every conference we used to have a post-conference meeting to go over what worked and what needed more work and to begin thinking about the following year's conference. Canada-e-Connect was started by the brilliant Jens Thraenhart, former Director of eMarketing for the Canadian Toursim Commission. Jens had a dream to start a world class eTourism event in Canada. And he achieved that dream in November 2007. After Jens moved on to pursue other interests (doing great work in China for many destinations around the world, including Canada, via Dragon Trail), the Tourism Industry Association of Canada took over the conference. While I haven't seen any official announcement (and maybe I missed it),  it is very unfortunate that TIAC has quietly killed the conference without, as much as I know, any industry consultations. On the one hand, I can understand why. TIAC is a lobbying organization, the voice of the industry in Ottawa. TIAC also manages the National Tourism Conference and Rendez-vous Canada, so adding another conference was a stretch and I know it was a lot of work for TIAC's fantastic staff.  So I can understand why TIAC is not doing CeC anymore. But, I wish there had been consultations and perhaps a call for other organizations to take over the conference.  But who knows, perhaps it will come back with another name and a more ambitious agenda (maybe I should look into it - perhaps my friends at Tnooz and Comptoirs du eTourisme will be interested in collaborating in an international eTourism Strategy event within a Canadian context). Many people have confused eTourism Marketing with eTourism Strategy. Any marketing, digital or not, must be grounded in sound strategy. CeC's purpose was to focus on this strategy, to help the industry think strategically. I was not about social media or Facebook or mobile, it was about how to strategize in the new digital era - how to use (or not use) the new tools, channels, technologies, etc., of the digital era to pursue your strategy in order to achieve your organizational's objectives. RIP Canada-e-Connect.

Busy weekend in Hamilton, Ontario

This weekend belongs to Hamilton, Ontario. Tens of thousands of people are coming to Hamilton this weekend for the Supercrawl and the Locke Street Festival. In addition the Canadian Country Music Industry family is celebrating Canadian Country Music Week at the Hamilton Convention Centre and Country Music Fanfest concert will be held in Jackson Square this morning and early aft. Finally, the CCMA Awards Monday night with a special appearance by Keith Urban.




-- Post From My iPhone

News Release from the PMO - Prime Minister Harper wraps up successful visit to Latin America

As a Hispanic Canadian, I am very pleased to see Prime Minister Harper working to strengthen our trade, business, education and friendship relationships in Latin America. I am a strong believer that Latin America (all of Latin America, but particularly Mexico and Brazil) is strategically very important to Canada.  Here's the news release from the PMO about the Prime Minister's latest trip:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper today wrapped up a highly successful visit to Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica and Honduras during which he met with political and business leaders and announced 25 initiatives in a broad range of areas, including on trade, air transportation, taxation, development co-operation, and support for human rights, peace and security. These initiatives will deepen Canada’s ties with these important hemispheric partners.

“Canada continues to be an active player in the hemisphere, strengthening economic ties with its partners, improving market access and promoting security,” said Prime Minister Harper. “The many agreements signed during the visit will support job creation and economic growth in Canada and for our trading partners, which in turn, will contribute to advancing security and democratic governance in the region.”

The objectives of the trip were to promote and enhance security in the region and to increase Canadian prosperity through trade and investment. The following results demonstrate that these objectives were met:

In Brazil, the Prime Minister announced the following 11 initiatives:

• An Air Transport Agreement
• An Agreement on Social Security
• A Memorandum of Understanding on Olympic Games Cooperation
• A Memorandum of Understanding on International Development Cooperation Effectiveness
• A Canada-Brazil Strategic Partnership Dialogue
• Renewed Funding for the International Science and Technology Partnership Program
• The development of a Science and Technology Action Plan focused on innovation
• The first scholarships granted under the “Canada-Brazil Awards: Joint Research Projects” 
• The Governor General's leading of the Canadian delegation for the next Conference of the Americas on International Education to be hosted by Brazil in April 2012 
• The creation of a Canada-Brazil CEO Forum, and the appointment of Mr. Rick Waugh as Canadian co-chair of the Forum 
• The opening of three new Visa Application Centres

In Colombia, the Prime Minister announced the following 4 initiatives:

• The entry into force of the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement on August 15, 2011
• Increased Canadian international development assistance to benefit children, at-youth risk and promote human rights
• Support for new and ongoing projects that will enhance peace, security and justice in Colombia and the region
• Colombia’s accession to Canada’s Military Training and Cooperation Program (2011-2014)

In Costa Rica, the Prime Minister announced the following 7 initiatives:

• The launch of negotiations to modernize the Canada-Costa Rica Free Trade Agreement, with a commitment to conclude negotiations one year from now
• An Air Transportation agreement
• A Tax Information Exchange Agreement 
• Canadian support for the Costa Rican Police Enhancement Program to help Costa Rican national police officers gain advanced training and mentoring through the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
• Canadian contribution of equipment to the Costa Rican police academy
• Canadian support for capacity building and security training for the Costa Rican tourism industry
• The opening of a new Visa Application Centre in Costa Rica

In Honduras, the Prime Minister announced the following 3 initiatives:

• The conclusion of negotiations toward a Canada-Honduras free trade agreement
• Canadian support to increase food security in Honduras
• Canadian support to help address regional security challenges in Central America, including Honduras

The measures announced over the course of this visit are intended to enhance commercial flows, regional stability and security. They build upon the many successes of our Government’s Americas strategy, which is focused on promoting prosperity at home and in countries of the Western hemisphere, reinforcing democratic governance, increasing economic prosperity and advancing our common security