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www.travelweekly.com
FEBRUARY 6, 2012
THE NATIONAL NEWSPAPER OF THE TRAVEL INDUSTRY
CruiseOne and Cruises Inc.:
We’ll pay customer deposits
By Johanna Jainchill
In what it says is an unprecedented
move, CruiseOne and Cruises Inc.
will front customers’ cruise deposits for bookings made during the
rest of February, and possibly beyond.
The “Advanced Deposit
(Buy Now, Pay Later) Pro-
motion” runs from Feb. 6
to 29, effectively enabling
CruiseOne and Cruises
Inc. franchises and agents
to book clients with “no
money down.”
The customers will then
pay back the deposit when they make their
final cruise payment.
Dwain Wall, senior vice president and
general manager of CruiseOne and Cruises
Inc., said the program is expected to increase
See DEPOSITS on Page 49
bookings by removing an “impediment to
people making the decision to book.”
If the results are good enough, the com-
pany might extend it.
“Our hopes are that it’s hugely successful
and that we can extend it,” Wall said. “We
don’t want to do it until we truly see that it’s
driving additional business.”
Since most clients book an average of six
months out and final payment is due 90 days
out, said Luis Zuniga,
CruiseOne and Cruises
Inc.’s vice president of mar-
keting, the program is like
giving customers “a three-
month, interest-free loan.”
most a cruise deposit would be. The promo-
tion does not apply to group sales, usually
eight cabins or more, or river cruises.
Wall acknowledged that the program would
The monthlong
program will cost the
brands millions of
dollars to support.
Signal at sea
It’s no small task to keep cruise passengers
connected to the Internet.
BY DONNA TUNNEY PAGE 22
[ NO LONG-TERM IMPACT EXPECTED ]
Cruise lines say Concordia disaster
prompts slowdown in new bookings
By Donna Tunney
Cruise booking volume at the world’s two
largest cruise companies dropped substantially in the wake of the mid-January Costa
Concordia accident.
At Carnival Corp., which owns Genoa,
Italy-based Costa, booking volume at the
company, excluding Costa, declined “in the
midteens” following the Jan. 13 accident, the
company said in a regulatory filing Jan. 30.
It stated that across its other nine brands,
bookings “bottomed out” on Jan. 16.
Costa’s booking activity since the accident
is “down significantly,” it said.
Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. on Feb. 2
said that, while cruise bookings have picked
up in recent days, they dropped by about
See BOOKINGS on Page 49
20% in the immediate aftermath of the Concordia disaster.
A modest recovery in the decline, “to the
midteens,” was seen later in January, indicating that the fallout is likely to be short-lived,
RCCL executives told industry analysts during a conference call to discuss quarterly results.
The drop in bookings for RCCL brands
Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity
Cruises and Azamara Club Cruises appeared
to mirror the booking decline that Carnival
Corp. experienced.
“Given the magnitude of the tragic events
in Italy, it’s not surprising we have seen an
impact,“ said RCCL Chairman and CEO
Richard Fain.
