Norwegian Cruise Line Leans Into “Easiest Cruise Line to Work With”

“Done,” was the almost immediate answer John Chernesky, senior vice president of sales for North America, gave to a travel advisor who asked if NCL could provide a matching status program to make it easier to lure clients away from other cruise lines.

“It’s a good suggestion,” Chernesky said, then asking advisors in attendance what they thought of the idea. After a resounding response of yes, he simply said, “Okay, done.”

It’s this type of interaction that Norwegian Cruise Line wants to lean into when it comes to its relationship with the travel trade. Not necessarily an immediate yes, but listening and responding to advisors’ concerns and saying yes when it makes sense.

Easiest To Do Business With? Herrera Almost Said No

This concept of being “the easiest line to do business with,” wasn’t actually appealing to NCL’s president David Herrera when Chernesky first brought it up.

During both the advisor panel and an earlier media panel, Herrera said his first response was no, he wasn’t ready to “sign up” for that. When Chernesky asked why, Herrera responded with an assumption – “that we’re going to say yes to everything.”

Chernesky told Herrera that’s not what he meant at all.

“That’s not what travel partners want,” Herrera said, referring to Chernesky’s response. “What travel partners expect is, we ask a question, give us an answer. And if you can’t give one, tell us why not. Show that you have skin in the game, that you’re committed enough to try and do that.”

That was something Herrera said he could do and the stronger relationships between NCL and the trade over the past two years since the brand introduced this commitment is something he takes a lot of pride in.

“I’ve heard it from a lot of travel partners – we are getting much, much better in, not only being the easiest to do business with, but also what you see is what you get. This is who we are… When our partners see the authenticity that we approach everything with, in the end that’s the right long-term strategy.”

A little later, in the panel for travel advisor, Herrera brought the topic up again.

“Partners find a way to collaborate to get to an amicable solution whenever possible… I’m standing here, genuinely telling you that our goal is to be the easiest cruise line to do business with. I know we’re not there yet, but we want to be your partner. We want you to be our partner.”

Onboard Booking Transfer Lag Time

Most of the questions put to the panel related to policies and backend systems. One such question came from Danny Genung, CEO of Harr Travel, who challenged NCL on the lag time between clients booking a cruise onboard and his advisors finding out about it – and getting credit for the booking.

“Norwegian is the one cruise line we actively ask our guests not to book online,” he said referring to the lag time, which he said could be two to three weeks or longer. “What is the purpose of that or is there a process going forward that we can utilize the onboard booking process in a better way. It’s not actually booked with us, it’s transferred.”

Several panelists responded with what Chernesky himself referred to as “a bunch of excuses as to why it’s not perfect.”

The main issue said Jen West, vice president of sales strategy and operations, is that the onboard booking system is built in a way that both ties the sale to the current cruise – the same way paying for a spa treatment is specific to that sailing, which must be completed to process the transaction – and is done by NCL’s in-house agency. There is no other way to do it.

“They [Cruise Next crew] don’t have access for example to make bookings under your individual agencies. Then when they [the bookings] get back there is a transfer process that takes place.”

West added that NCL is building a new system and a fix to this issue is on the short list of things to include, though she offered no timeline to when that might become available.

“It’s not the intent that we want for it to take that long, it is as Jen said, a systems thing,” added Derek Lloyd, vice president of strategy and national accounts. “They’re trying to improve it but it is a manual process once it comes back to the office to transfer it over.”

“It’s an unfortunate reality that we are trying to fix because we agree with you,” Chernesky said.