CRUISE is playing an increasingly larger role in Flight Centre’s sales strategy, Managing Director Andrew Stark told travelBulletin, as the agency aims to diversify its product offering.
Stark said selling more cruise is a goal for the network, particularly as its ‘Bundle and Save’ promotion hits the market, offering $500 off bookings.
“We’ve started to build this narrative that we want to be famous for flights, plus more,” Stark told tB, following Flight Centre’s recent conference aboard P&O Cruises Australia’s Pacific Encounter.
“The flight space has become highly commoditised, revenue streams are probably a little bit constrained to where they were in years gone by, and when you’re famous for flights and predominantly that’s a lot of what you sell, you have to look to how you can diversify your product offering.
“We’ve been doubling down on how we become more of a ‘four-plus component’ brand: you sell a flight, which is one component, you sell an insurance policy, which is another component, and then you sell a cruise, and you sell a hotel, and you sell an activity.”
Early signs from ‘Bundle and Save’ are “very positive”, Stark said, with Flight Centre’s advisors using the promotion as an effective conversion metric, particularly as interest in cruise spikes in Australia.
“We’re seeing a number of bookings being converted sooner rather than later, in order to capitalise on the $500 off per booking, and we certainly see the uptake in cruise cutting through far more than we do in touring, so cruise is a popular product,” Stark added.
Helping Flight Centre’s advisors more effectively convert on cruise bookings is the company’s training partnership with Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA).
“We doubled down on investing in training, so we will probably have about 1,500 fully accredited CLIA consultants the next six months…I’m included in that,” Stark enthused.
“[We’re] singing from the same hymn sheet, making sure the most senior people in the business are CLIA accredited.
“The training element has been in play now for a year, so we’ve seen the fruits of that initiative paying off now.
“We know with cruising, you can get it really wrong as well…you put the wrong customer on the wrong cruise, and you have a non-cruiser for life.
“You put the right customer on the right cruise, and you get a cruiser for life.”
The new offer is also helping Flight Centre stave off softening demand, Stark added.
“There’s still demand, it certainly feels a little bit softer than where it was maybe six months ago, but what we are seeing is we seeing customers are taking a little bit longer to convert,” he explained.
“Six months ago, there was more of an instantaneous conversion [which has] certainly slowed down.
“Customers are still traveling, customers are still inquiring, [they] are taking a little bit longer to actually finalise their plans.”
Stark theorised a number of factors, such as multi-generational travel, payment trends, and comparison shopping, as potentially influencing lead times.
“What we do see is customers bundling up more, our component growth has grown.
“We’re over three components now as a brand, we were just under two, two and a half years ago, so we’ve seen a gradual increase, so that obviously that means customers are bundling more.”
