RCCL’s CEO On Travel Agents And A Royal Expansion

Photo courtesy: ATren

For Royal Caribbean and its CEO and president Michael Bayley, there is no more important partner than the travel-agent community. And while Royal wants guests to book their cruises however they feel most comfortable, most are still doing so through a travel professional.

“We love travel agents, we will always be loyal to our travel agents,” Bayley told Travel Market Report. “They are our true partners.”

Travel professionals are Royal Caribbean’s “most critical sales channel,” Bayley said, accounting for “a huge percentage” of all bookings. “Agents are by far our most dominant channel.”

The largest cruise line in the market has run into some hard times on the PR side recently, with the Oasis of the Seas—its largest cruise ship—being hit with 30-foot-high waves and hurricane-force winds on the first day of its journey, a touch of norovirus, and a corporate decision to tighten its cancellation policy.

But Bayley remains optimistic about where Royal is headed.

Perhaps the most exciting growth should come in China, he said, where Royal Caribbean soon will be the largest single cruise line in the Asian market. It has three ships—Mariner of the Seas, Voyager of the Seas, and Legend of the Seas—homeported in China, and will add another in April when the Ovation of the Seas debuts.

Still, “the U.S. will always be our top market,” he said. By November in Florida alone Royal Caribbean will be cruising 15,000 guests at a time, with the Oasis of the Seas, the Allure of the Seas, and the Harmony of the Seas all homeporting in Florida ports.

The Harmony, which  just successfully completed its first sea trials on Monday, will be the largest ship in the world when it debuts in Southampton, England, in May. It will be so large that its 6,000guests will be issued wristbands with GPSs so they won’t get lost.