NCL Launches Consumer Travel Channel on YouTube
by Marilee CrockerNorwegian Cruise Line this week introduced an interactive consumer travel channel on YouTube that directs visitors to NCL’s online booking engine.
Called YouTube Vacationer, the site showcases NCL’s Freestyle Cruising approach. It allows visitors to select from numerous short video clips that spotlight the kinds of experiences NCL cruisers can expect both shoreside and onboard ship. When a video is selected for viewing, an NCL ad appears promoting a specific cruise, including price, along with a “Book Now” button.
In a “Vacation You” section on NCL’s YouTube site, visitors can create their own video montages, then share them with others via Facebook, Twitter or email. “By encouraging YouTube’s millions of viewers to create their own Freestyle Cruising video we are giving them the opportunity to experience the freedom and flexibility we offer with our cruise vacations,” an NCL spokeswoman told Travel Market Report.
NCL’s YouTube travel channel is a consumer product and does not include specific travel seller tie-ins or benefits, the spokeswoman said. “The only real benefit [for agents] is putting together one of their own videos on the channel, and sending it out to their Facebook followers and showing potential clients what an NCL experience looks like.”
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Michelle Fee, CEO of Coral Springs, Fla.-based Cruise Planners, whose home-based agents produce more than $100 million in annual sales, said of NCL’s YouTube Vacationer, “I think it’s a great tool, very informative. It’s upbeat. This whole viral marketing is the new wave. I think everybody should jump on board. It’s unfortunate that they don’t also add ‘call your travel agent’,” she said. “To put those words on there certainly would go a long way in the travel agent community.”
In fact, when visitors click the Book Now button, they are linked to NCL’s booking engine, which does suggest they call their travel professional. The “call your travel professional” suggestion is the first item in a box that also features NCL’s toll-free number and an option to request a return call from NCL.
The video clips on YouTube Vacationer range from enticing destination features to practical and humorous travel tips. They are provided by sources such as Lonely Planet and the Travel Channel. Content will be updated weekly.
At least one video clip features a travel agent, Sally Watkins, CTC, of Century Travel in Austin. Watkins, an Italy specialist and longtime travel agent, offers her packing advice for trips to Europe. Watkins could not be reached by press time for comment.
Branding the Business
Industry consultant Susan Black said she sees YouTube Vacationer as fitting “perfectly” with the brand promise in NCL’s Freestyle Cruising. Black, co-founder of Black & Wright in Woodcliff Lake, N.J., and a brand specialist, said she doesn’t see the new channel as a way for NCL to muscle past travel agents. “They’re trying to build a brand,” Black said. “It’s just another evolution, another channel. It’s a growing channel. Like any great exercise, viral or branding or otherwise, it makes someone want to get up and go. How they choose to book, whether it’s direct or through an agent, is entirely up to them.”
Black also said that social media channels are “by definition self-directed” and not conducive to intermediation. “It’s all about me, and how I engage and how I share information I get with my community. It’s basically putting the consumer in control.”
Black said she sees YouTube Vacationer making good use of social media by giving visitors something to share in their networks.
Asked about growth in cruise lines marketing direct to consumers, Fee of Cruise Planners commented that it is “obviously bigger than ever.” Some cruise lines are more aggressive about consumer-direct marketing than others, she added. “Agents have to step it up,” Fee said. “We have to make sure the last person that the customer has seen or heard from is us.”
Steve Gelfuso, president and CEO of CruiseBrothers.com in Cranston, R.I., said of YouTube Vacationer, “certainly these things are going to siphon off business.” The 30-year industry veteran commented that cruise lines, like travel agents, have to innovate to stay alive and YouTube Vacationer does just that. “It’s helping to market these cruises that need to be marketed,” he said. There will always be suppliers who sell direct, Gelfuso added. “We try to show we do a better job.”
NCL’s YouTube Vacationer is YouTube’s first travel-specific channel.
