CELEBRITY Cruises is bearing fruit in Australia as both a key destination and source market for the line, says Managing Director and Vice President, Tim Jones.
The cruise line’s chief, speaking to travelBulletin aboard Celebrity Edge this week, said Australia is providing a “beautiful mix” of contributions for the company.
“We have a lovely number of international cruisers who come to cruise with us in this part of the world…they want to see Australia,” he explained.
“However we also know Australians are prolific cruisers, so we have a great [group] of domestic Aussie cruisers who want to cruise close-to-home.
“We have a really high number of Australians who love cruising with us in Europe, Alaska, Asia and South America.”
Basing some of its newest hardware in Australia, such as Edge, builds rapport between local passengers and the company’s newbuilds, encouraging them to book a fly-cruise with the line, Jones added.
“They can experience [Edge-class] ships close to home, and then they can book Edge, [which] goes off to Alaska in our winter,” Jones explained to tB.
“There’s the opportunity to stay reunited with the ship you’ve just fallen in love with, but to see a different part of the world.”
Edge is in her second season in Australia, which will run through to Apr.
The ship will offer 17 itineraries visiting a collection of 26 ports, including new destinations such as Samoa, Fiji, American Samoa, and Tonga, with highlights including 11- and 13-night New Zealand voyages.
Celebrity’s Australian guests are also booking longer, more complex journeys, Jones added, which as a result, is seeing the cruise line branching out its distribution strategy.
The past few months has seen Celebrity partner with Wendy Wu Tours, as well as the nascent Aldi Holidays brand, through Ignite Travel Group.
“We find from an Australian guest perspective, they will book the 10- to 12- nights, and they’ll do back-to-backs,” Jones told tB.
“When we invest on that big trip to Europe, we want to make the most of it when we get there, and we go and stay five or six weeks often, and then a cruise becomes an integral part of that five- or six-week holiday.
“We want to combine land, we don’t just want to do cruise, and those travel partners [and] our product enables our guests to do that,” he added.
This product profile is part of the reason Celebrity is so reliant on trade distribution, Jones said.
“Travel advisors [are] our partners in helping drive our business forward, they’re hugely valuable to guests.
“Particularly the more complex an itinerary becomes, having that dedicated advice and knowledge from the travel partner is exactly what guests needs, so they’re very valuable to our business.”
