easyCruise (Photo credit: Titanas)
One recent story on European line EasyCruise reminds me of the classic Jackson Browne song Stay. It’s also a wonderful marketing idea the larger lines can borrow from to get their pods chriping.
Research clearly indicates the importance of “sampling’” destinations in cruise selection and the large number of cruisers that subsequently return to ports of call for land based vacations.
So, why not re-capture a portion of this market by adding longer stays in port?
"The concept appears to have attracted people of all ages (mostly curious and well-behaved lovers of travel) who were interested in accessing ports…on schedules that allowed them to truly explore the islands.”
With the unquestionable and widely recognized value of cruises over the cost of land-based travel, cruise lines would have a distinct pricing advantage. And for the traveler niche that is seeking to experience in more depth the destination this provides a good reason to consider a cruise for the return.
A bit more complex to coordinate with cabin embarkation/debarkation and specific destination requirements would be a “train service” approach where a cruiser could “drop off” at an island, stay as long as they like, then use their ticket to re-embark on essentially any ship within the same carrier line to catch the next cruise leg of their journey.
Related articles
- New Cruise Review: MSC Poesia (cruisediva.blogspot.com)
Thanks Suzanne, very interesting.
I like the idea of longer stays in port. Sometimes the ships even do overnight stays to allow for more excursion options. In Lahaina, Maui some ships to an overnight stay that allows passengers to drive the road to Hana or attend the Old Lahaina Lua. Years ago we did a cruise with a late departure from San Juan. We were able to go to a dinner show in San Juan and the have a spectacular sail-away on deck with the spectacular city lights of San Juan. In Acapulco many ships do a late departure to allow passengers to attend dinner shows there as well.