Carnival Cruise Line Vs. Royal Caribbean International

Copa Cruises - Welcome Aboard! Copa Cruises is a 40-year old company that offers dining and sightseeing cruises. What started with only one ship at Maryland’s Eastern Shore, is now a big business operating at multiple locations with 40 vessels. Copa operates scheduled tours at least twice daily during the peak travel/tourism seasons at each of its locations. The total number of scheduled tours varies based on the number of vessels available at each location. Copa also offers its ships exclusively for groups. In fact, a significant portion of Copa’s revenues come from group bookings. Typically, group customers book for corporate events, weddings, or private celebrations (e.g. family reunion). Copa customizes the table arrangement, the deck,

Amusement parks are a great form of entertainment for families and individuals. Walt Disney World resort and Universal Orlando resort are two popular theme park destinations which provide enjoyment to many worldwide visitors on a daily basis. Although both resorts share similarities, they also have numerous differences which set them apart from each other – creating a unique vacation experience for each visitor.

Carnival Cruise Lines is the largest cruise company in North America and carries more than 60,000 passengers a week. The Carnival experience is the standard against what past cruisers judge their later cruise experiences. Carnival has captured the "fun" psychographic and has a strong reputation for an enjoyable, relaxed cruise. Furthermore, Carnival has a strong market expansion strategy for selling the mass-market cruise category and first-time cruisers. They have a clear vision and knowledge about the industry and a commitment to their brand essence, which is fun. Also, as an extension to their branding of the "fun" ships they are the low-price leaders. Because of their strong brand image they are able to achieve double-digit growth in

Carnival Cruise Lines is one of the most successful cruise lines in the world. They have taken an industry that once only catered to the elite and turned it into a possibility for people of varying economic means all over the world. In their quest to provide a service with mass appeal, Carnival has become the very definition of international business.

The Carnival Cruise Lines, Inc., was founded by Ted Arison in 1972. (Corporate Information) Ted ran the company until 1990 when he handed over the business to his son, Micky Arison. Micky became the CEO, and then became the Chairman. Carnival is the largest and most popular cruise line in the world, carrying more passengers than any other cruise ship. The Carnival Corporation mission statement is; “Our mission is to take the world on vacation and deliver exceptional experiences through many of the world's best-known cruise brands that cater to a variety of different geographic regions and lifestyles, all at an outstanding value unrivaled on land or at sea.” (Carnival Corporation History)

Top strengths that Carnival Corporation & plc has to their advantage would be their strong brand and major control of the market share. Containing a strong brand portfolio with a total of 10 well-known brands operating about 102 ships. Such brands include Carnival Cruise Lines, Holland America Line, Princess Cruises and Seabourn in North America; AIDA Cruises, Costa Cruises, Cunard, Ibero Cruises, P&O Cruises (Australia) and P&O Cruises (UK) under the Europe, Austrailia & Asia segments. Along with Holland America Princess Alaska Tour and the Canadian Yukon (Olarte, 2017). The company is also the largest cruise company in the world in terms of cruise passengers with a market share of about 47% followed by Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd with a market share of 23% (Cederholm, 2015).

Carnival is a leader in the cruise industry and it’s highly likely that the consumers would select this company; as it is also a branded company recognizable on the market it allow the process of word of mouth that lessen the power of the consumers from their self.

Carnival can’t do so much if the test and preference of the consumers change and increase the propensity of customers to switch to alternatives. Land based vacations are a big threat to Carnival, many vacationers don’t think of cruises when planning trips; Cruise Market Watch, a cruise vacation research company, estimated that all cruise lines will carry an annualized total passenger count worldwide of 18.4 million in 2010.

Even though Carnival Cruise Lines’ present is looking positive, there are still some opportunities and challenges. Over the past two years Carnival Cruise Lines has captured transactional data about its customers but to date has not taken advantage of it to create value. And the data also reflect the Carnival relationship with travel agency. Carnival’s reservations office only can get roughly information from travel agency booking. And 85% booking from travel agency with 10% commission also causes Carnival want to enhance their own direct-sale channel. All of these indicate that the priority issue should be how to utilize the customer data to benefit both customers and company. And Carnival only have 50% of repeat guests. In terms of a

Continued operations on all other cruise ships for Carnival Cruise Lines will remain on schedule. Splendor future trips will need to be addressed immediately. If unable to find a replacement ship, speak with other cruise lines if they can take on customers that Carnival is unable to place on another cruise while Splendor is being repaired. Those customers will get a full refund as well as same status stay on the new cruise line.

A. Pause Strategy (CI#1, 2, 3): Carnival Corp has been known for health and safety records, a key component in consumer decision-making in the cruise industry. In order to begin improvements, a pause strategy needs to be utilized to allow the company to take a step back from aggressive growth and focus more towards consumer necessities. Many complaints stem from issues like sanitization of rooms, quality of food, and ship malfunctions. Keying in on ship maintenance, restoration, and efficiency will significantly decrease the chance of malfunctions. While implementing more stringent and attentive guidelines towards guest amenities and conditions of food storage/quality to help increase consumer appeal.

Second class passengers were mostly white collar workers and steerage was offered to the relatively poor.’ Cruising was therefore only ideal for the rich. But today cruises lines have changed dramatically within the travel industry and have become very cost efficient to customers. As many new deals are being promoted by advertisements to offer customers a price sufficient holiday without spending too much. Pricing is critical within a company because if the pricing is too high it won’t attract many people who are looking for a low budget cruises. Companies have certain pricing strategies. These are premium pricing, value for money pricing and undercut pricing. Pricing can also be determined by peak of off peak times within the year. Both companies have a set of terms and conditions which are on both on the websites stating the pricing policy when booking a cruise with that company. But on the Thomas cook website it does not state anything about booking a cruise terms and conditions. These should be read by customers before booking. Carnival Line cruises are offering 110% best price guarantee as once a customer has booked with Carnival Cruise Lines, if they find a better deal they will be offered more on board credit on their stay with the cruise line. This promotion is very good as it attracts more individuals to travel with them. As both cruises are targeted towards different destinations around the globe and not the same

Forty five years and forty ships later, based out of Miami Florida, Royal Caribbean is the second largest cruise line in the world, behind frontrunner Carnival. RCCL operates its ships under the brand names Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, Pullmantur, Azamara Cruises, and Croisières

Carnival Cruise’s, Disney Cruises and Norwegian was the only other clear competitors to RCL but in terms of subsidiaries Crystal Cruises was the only direct rival in terms of size and scale and position in the industry but in analyzing the demand increase from 1999 to 2001 a 16.7% increase in demand showed that Celebrity cruises had to maintain their position as a luxury brand to continue being a major player in the industry. The demand was strong and the competition was average, as it relates to entries to market the cruise line industry requires multiple stipulations and regulations required thus unless one of the major players mentioned above acquired a smaller cruise line to increase in operations and services Celebrity’s position was relatively strategic and smart. The competitive landscape was relatively small so quality improvement process should be the main focus during this time, they already created the process needed to offer superior service thus tweaks such as management training, career progression programs and increases in standard of performance programs would set Celebrity’s consistent quality assurance position in the industry to better

Sheivachman, A. (2016, Feb 15). Sustainability is Still a Work in Progress for Cruise Lines. Retrieved from Skift: