What’s In This Issue:
- From the Bridge– CLIA Agent efforts are contributing to a successful Wave season.
- Cruising in the News – The Super Bowl city of Jacksonville is an emerging cruise embarkation port….Caribbean cruise passenger totals for 2004 show broad growth across destinations.
- Maximizing Membership Benefits– CLIA Fleet Review provides agents with up-to-the-minute information on member-line fleets and marketing messages.
- We Thought You Should Know –– “il Capo” disembarks at Costa Cruises.
February 2005
From The Bridge
Greetings!
Recent reports from several of CLIA’s member travel agencies, plus member-line officials, financial analysts and travel journalists, all indicate that 2005 is shaping up as another strong year for cruise vacations. Once again, your dedicated sales efforts, combined with cruising’s fundamental value and broad appeal, are driving our industry to unprecedented success. Yet as you all know, prosperity is not a right, but a result of planning and hard work.As Alice Foote MacDougall, a pioneering 1920s American businesswoman once said, “Much of the success of life depends upon keeping one’s mind open to opportunity and seizing it when it comes.”
We are taking that sage advice to heart at CLIA. For example, we’ve capitalized upon a few important changes in the cruise marketplace to alter some long-running CLIA programs. For example, since 1992, February’s arrival signaled the beginning of CLIA’s National Cruise Vacation Month (NCVM) promotion, a campaign originally intended to drive booking activity following the “Wave Week” period.
Over the years, booking patterns have changed, and Wave Week has evolved into “Wave Month” and finally into today’s three-month “Wave Period.” Recognizing an opportunity, we moved NCVM from February to October to allow CLIA agencies to focus their efforts on cruise sales throughout the busy Wave Period. The new October NCVM will also provide your agency with critical promotional support during the less hectic fall season and hopefully set the stage for a new “wave” of sales activity.
In place of the new NCVM, we have also conducted several media initiatives and promotional programs to support your efforts during the Wave Period. These include:
- A January press conference in New York for consumer and trade journalists. At this event I reviewed our 2004 passenger totals, offered a forecast for 2005, and shared details on CLIA’s 30th Anniversary. The briefing was attended by journalists from the Associated Press, The New York Times, The Financial Times, Business Week, Conde Nast Traveler, Travel + Leisure, Travel Weekly, Travel Agent and Modern Agent.
- A Wave Season Video News Release (VNR) in which I discuss current cruise trends including why consumers should book early; and why European cruises offer great values versus land travel. This VNR is currently being broadcast across North America.
- A CBS News interview filmed aboard Radisson Seven Seas Cruises’ Seven Seas Navigator, one of six CLIA member-line ships docked at last week’s Super Bowl in Jacksonville. Broadcast by 22 CBS stations to an audience of 701,435 during Super Bowl week, the interview stresses the value and expertise provided by CLIA-member agencies.
- CLIA’s new Consumer E-Newsletter – featuring information on how consumers can utilize CLIA travel agencies to ensure the best cruise experience – was recently distributed to influential travel journalists.
These are just a handful of the promotional initiatives CLIA has launched in 2005, programs that will not only support your cruise sales efforts during the Wave Period, but throughout the year. I will continue to provide you with updates on our promotional programs as they are introduced.
A successful early season will likely translate into another record-setting year for cruise vacations, but only if we continue to seize the opportunities before us.
Bon Voyage!
Terry L. Dale
President & CEO
CLIA
Super Results in Jacksonville
Six CLIA member-line ships, including three Holland America Line vessels, provided nearly 4,000 rooms for visitors to Super Bowl XXXIX in Jacksonville. Jacksonville, Fla. gained national attention earlier this month as the host city of Super Bowl XXXIX, at which six CLIA member-line ships provided accommodations for 7,638 guests. But Jacksonville is already a growing cruise port. According to a 2004 study by Orlando-based Fishkin and Associates, Inc., Jacksonville’s cruise industry could grow to create more than 2,700 jobs and pump $1.5 billion into the regional economy over the next 20 years. The growth is “contingent upon the Port Authority (also know as JAXPORT) providing space for two large cruise ships to dock simultaneously east of the Dames Point Bridge, something [we] are now exploring,” said JAXPORT officials. Jacksonville’s cruise operations have created an estimated 715 new jobs and more than $36 million in economic impact annually in Northeast Florida, according to a 2003 study by the Northeast Florida Regional Council.
More Homeport Growth
Several North American port cities have launched initiatives to expand their port facilities to accommodate their growing cruise operations. Among the developments:
- The Virginia Port Authority is building a $36 million downtown cruise terminal in Norfolk, funding the project through a $60 million bond issue. The first phase of construction on the 80,000 square foot facility is underway and is slated to open in the fall of 2006. The terminal site is located in Norfolk’s harbor between Town Point Park and Nauticus, the National Maritime Center. More than 114,000 vacationers will sail from Norfolk in 2005, said Gov. Mark Warner, a 10 percent increase over 2004 totals and more than twice the 50,000 who sailed from Norfolk in 2003.
- New York City, once the center of transatlantic passenger shipping and now a growing cruise hub, will gain a new $30 million terminal in 2006. New York City’s Economic Development Corp. recently signed a long-term lease with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for 28 acres at two piers in the borough of Brooklyn, where the new terminal will rise. The terminal site is located at Pier 12 in the Red Hook neighborhood, and will include passenger pick-up and drop-off areas and about 400 parking spaces. Construction is slated to begin in March.
- In a January speech celebrating the 125th anniversary of New Orleans’ Board of Trade, Gary La Grange, Director of the Port of New Orleans, said the Crescent City’s growing cruise business “may lead to the creation of yet another cruise terminal besides the three already operational or approved for construction,” according to a report on the BizNewOrleans.com Web site. New Orleans’ aging Julia Street cruise terminal is scheduled for renovation; work has already begun on a new $35 million cruise terminal at Erato Street and construction is slated to begin soon on another cruise terminal in the city’s Bywater district. Said La Grange, “I’m not saying it will be tomorrow, but if demand is there three or four years from now, I can’t wait until then to start looking for another site.”
Caribbean Destinations Show Broad Cruise Growth
The Caribbean is the preeminent cruise destination, and recent numbers from the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) show the trend continuing. According to Arley Sobers, CTO’s director of information management and research, region-wide cruise-passenger totals increased by 13% to a total of 20.5 million in 2004.
CLIA statistics also reveal the Caribbean’s enduring strength as a cruise destination. Caribbean islands accounted for 40.4% of all CLIA passenger bed-days in 2004 (one guest on one day of a cruise equals one passenger bed-day, so a couple on a seven-night cruise equals 14 bed-days). The next-largest destination, the Mediterranean, accounted for 12.6% of total industry bed-days.
Antigua and Barbuda
January to November
374,334
28.8%
Aruba
January to October
379,607
14.5%
Bahamas
January to December
3,360,012
13.1%
Barbados
January to December
739,417
33.2%
Belize
January to November
747,746
55.1%
Bermuda
January to November
205,630
8.8%
Bonaire
January to November
30,080
8.3%
Cayman Islands
January to July
1,191,593
12%
Curacao
January to December
219,385
21.5%
Dominica
January to May
191,784
106.1%
Grenada
January to July
159,612
74.6%
Jamaica
January to November
966,022
4.6%
Martinique
January to November
132,388
41.5%
Puerto Rico
January to October
1,065,215
13.5%
St. Lucia
January to December
481,279
22.4%
St. Maarten
January to September
783,238
19.1%
St. Vincent & The Grenadines
January to November
68,562
44%
U.S. Virgin Islands
January to October
1,939,609
10.7%
The Complete CLIA FleetThe CLIA Fleet, Knowing The Products You Sell, is our newest online training course. This new training module provides member agents with an easy-to-use tool to obtain quick overviews of each CLIA member line, as well as key marketing messages agents can use to tailor their presentations for clients.
Sponsored by American Express®, CLIA Fleet Review is the 16th online course in CLIA’s Cruise Counsellor sales training curriculum. The course is open to all CLIA agents, and also offers 15 credits towards the completion of certification requirements in CLIA’s Associate Cruise Counsellor (ACC), Master Cruise Counsellor (MCC), Elite Cruise Counsellor (ECC) or Elite Cruise Counsellor Scholar (ECCS) programs.
CLIA Fleet Review will offer one three- to five-page lesson for each member line, with images, and conclude with a brief knowledge check and final examination. The course also features information on each cruise line’s key selling points and brand qualities.
To access CLIA Fleet, Knowing The Products You Sell and other online training programs, please visit www.theacademy.com/theacademy-clia. For more information on all of CLIA’s training and membership programs, visit http://www.cruising.org/TravelAgents/index.cfm
A Fond Farewell for “il Capo”
Dino Schibuola, a familiar presence to veteran cruise-selling travel agents, retired in late 2004 after 25 years with Costa Cruises. Schibuola spent the past 11 years as chairman and CEO of Costa North America, directing sales and marketing activities in North as well as Central America.
In celebration of Schibuola’s retirement, Costa officials joined executives and officials from other cruise lines, plus Schibuola’s family and friends from around the industry last month to toast “il Capo” at a Sunday luncheon aboard Costa Atlantica in Port Everglades.
Due to these whimsical table settings, the ‘il Capo’ event “was occasionally punctuated by sounds of gunfire,” in the words of one attendee.
Surrounded by well-wishers in a dining room decorated with toy pistols, black fedoras with white bands, cigars and fake currency bearing his image, the Genoa-born Schibuola watched a retrospective video of his career at Costa.
According to a report from Cruise Community.com editor Ann Kalosh, a guest at the luncheon, the video was “narrated by shady characters and recounted highlights of ‘il Capo’s’ tight reign at the Costa America helm, including his ‘takeover’ of various cruise markets. Budget cuts were punctuated by the sound of machine-gun fire.”
As his friends and co-workers know, this sort of dry humor plays well with Schibuola, who is also known for his keen interest in history, voluminous vocabulary and reputation for being, in the word of MSC Cruises President Rick Sasso, “a brilliant businessman.”
“I prefer the term ‘unemployed’ to ‘retired,’ Schibuola joked when CLIA E News spoke with him recently. “I spent 11 years as president. It is a miracle I was able to keep my job.”
Schibuola is moving from South Florida to the central Florida city of Gainesville, where he and his wife Kathi have built a house, and where his two sons work and attend college. Last fall, Lynn Torrent was named to replace Schibuola as President and CEO - North America.
Following the long seafaring tradition of his hometown, Schibuola began his career working aboard passenger ships. He later ran his own management consulting firm, Adelphia, Ltd. and from 1990 to 1993 held a senior position with now-defunct Chandris Cruises. At Chandris, he was part of the team that launched Celebrity Cruises.
“All I can say is that I was fortunate to enter the cruise industry at its infancy,” said Schibuola. “I’ve told my sons a young industry provides opportunities. In any profession, you should always be paid well, but you should also be happy and have opportunities for personal growth. For me, all of those thresholds have been met, so it’s a nice time to depart.”
While attributing his own successful run in the cruise industry to “70% my ability, 30% luck,” Schibuola says the industry’s growing success if due to a handful of visionaries. “The cruise industry has changed and become a big business,” he said. “I think you have to give credit to people like Bob Dickinson and the people at Carnival, who saw that this could be a big business for the masses rather than a pastime for 1% of the population.”
