Catching Up with CLIA’s Bud Darr

The Cruise Lines International Association’s new president and CEO Bud Darr has a special appreciation for travel advisors. The fact is, he might never have joined the cruise industry if it wasn’t for an advisor.

Back in 2010, Bill Maloney, a former ASTA president and CEO – and good friend of Darr’s – invited him to a round of golf. It was a golf outing that would change his life.

“He introduced me to an executive at CLIA and that led to CLIA asking me to join them in 2010,” he told TMR.

“I was there [CLIA] from 2010 to 2017 and it was an incredible experience… the type of professional experience that gave me a strong appetite for this industry,” he added.

Part of that time, Darr worked for then CLIA president and CEO Christine Duffy. Now president of Carnival Cruise Line, Duffy’s background includes more than six years as president of Maritz Travel Company and 19 at an events management company. Her background gave her a special understanding of the travel advisor community that the cruise industry, at that moment in time, needed.

It was under Duffy that Darr learned how important advisors are to the cruise industry.

Seventy to 75% of cruise bookings are made by travel advisors, Darr told TMR, a number he said remains relatively unchanged since he was last at CLIA.

“They are an extremely important part of our community.”

While his focus has always been on the technical, maritime and regulatory affairs side of the cruise industry, there were times his duties crossed over into advisor-facing territory. Post Costa Concordia, Darr helped draft information to educate advisors on safety matters and enable them to communicate with clients in a way that would reassure them that cruising was safe.

During the pandemic, he worked with CLIA on a “package of materials” to help advisors advise their clients about what to expect when cruising at the time.

He’s also spoken at Cruise360. “I am not afraid to engage with that community to make sure that I’m communicating on the key issues,” he said.

But Darr is the first to admit, he’s not well known within the advisor community.

“If there is one segment of our community that knows me less than others, it has to be the travel advisor community. I recognize that and I know I need to earn their confidence. I need to earn their respect,” he told TMR.  “It is really important that they get to know me, and I get to understand them better. I appreciate their value already.”

Darr has already had conversations with Zane Kirby, president and CEO of the American Society of Travel Advisors, to see how CLIA and ASTA can collaborate more closely. He’s also setting up meetings with Host and consortia leaders.

Though Darr’s focus will be on helping CLIA achieve its net zero goal by 2050, as well as actively participate in regulatory advocacy, he was clear with TMR that CLIA’s commitment to the travel advisor community is not changing.

“We have a tremendous amount of our resources internally focused on the travel advisor community… It is a key part of the business overall because they are fundamentally very important. I know that… I’m not only going to maintain those relationships, I’m going to build on them.”

Technical & Regulatory Expertise

During his first tenure at CLIA, Darr locked in his expertise and reputation as the go-to guy for everything technical and regulatory within the cruise industry. It’s why MSC Group recruited him in 2017 to lead its maritime policy and government affairs division – for both cruise and cargo.

Now that he has returned to CLIA to put his expertise to use in positioning the industry to be a global leader in the maritime world, particularly as it relates to sustainability, environmental technology, and government and regulatory issues.

It’s a job he’s perfectly suited for, he said.

“I have dedicated a huge amount of my professional effort, even back to my Coast Guard days, over the last 20 years to that subject [environmental technology]. At the end of the day, it is the cruise lines that are doing the real work here… But I can help them because I have been in their position and I can facilitate both the policy space and help them prioritize and understand the landscape around them.”

In fact, much of what he’ll be focusing on is similar to what he was just doing at MSC Group, where he was tasked with creating the company’s global government affairs and policy division.

“I was working both cargo and cruise issues and walking the line between both of those, finding common ground, and applying the things we learned in one space to the other. That doesn’t change with CLIA. It is the same thing except instead of just one cruise line, it’s the 45 cruise line members that I’m looking out for now.”

He added, “On the policy side of things, those relationships and that experience will be extremely valuable because those things do not go away for cruise.”

While on the face of it, this advocacy work is focused primarily on the cruise lines, the trickle-down effect is important to the advisor community, he added. When the cruise industry prospers, so, too, do the advisors who sell cruises.

First Priorities

When TMR asked Darr what his first priorities are as he settles into the new job, he emphasized that much of what he wants to do is build on what CLIA is already doing well.

“I want to work on building on the foundation that we have and create a stronger, more unified single organization to serve the global needs,” he said.

First and foremost, he wants to get all of the cruise industry’s stakeholders talking to each other on a more regular basis, and not only when things have gone wrong and they suddenly need to work together.

“I want to build a stronger sense of community that connects them all when it’s not a crisis, so that we really do feel like we’re moving as one entire community towards more and more successful businesses, towards meeting our sustainability goals – particularly decarbonization – and making sure that we maintain the license to operate in enough destinations to be able to provide great vacation experiences.”

This community includes the cruise lines, travel advisors, ship builders, equipment providers, and ports and destinations.

“The lines are in the business of operating the cruises, but that can’t happen without these others. They need the agents to sell the 70 to 75%. They need the shipbuilders to deliver more and more innovative ships… You cannot do that without the right equipment… and without ports and destinations that are vibrant and healthy… We can succeed much better in the longer term if we are acting as a community together for the common benefit of all.”

Speaking of destinations, another priority for Darr is to “step up our efforts and leverage the work we’ve already done to be better corporate citizens and be understood in the communities where we’re operating. To help them manage their overall tourism flows much better.”

Darr said the cruise industry often gets blamed “disproportionally and unfairly” for overtourism.

“But really the traffic of cruise guests, those volumes are managed tourism, and we have the ability to manage them better than with Airbnb and self-directed travel.”

Ultimately, Darr said, his goal is to continue to build a stronger, more effective CLIA to create a business environment where everyone is more successful in the end — including travel advisors.