On The Deck: Fraser Ellacott
Contributors are not employed, compensated or governed by TD, opinions and statements are from the contributor directly
Thomson Cruises operates in the three-star category. How has your company fared in that segment over the past couple of years?
It’s been largely a good news story for Thomson Cruises over the last couple of years. We are consistently seeing an increase in our selling prices, volumes year-on-year and most importantly customer satisfaction.
Thomson’s ships by today standards are considered to be old and relatively small. What continues to make these ships attractive to the consumer?
We do have smaller ships but that’s precisely where our appeal lies. There is an informality and friendliness on board our ships that our customers love. Our customers also value the fact that we can pull into ports that are out of reach for some city-sized liners. Of course, there are other benefits that help us stand out from the crowd, for example we include tips and service charges in the cost of our holidays and as the cruise arm of Europe’s biggest tour operator, we have our own airline – which means we can offer an unbeatable range of regional airports for our fly-cruises. We’re also the market leaders in Cruise & Stay holidays, packaging handpicked Thomson hotels with our fly-cruises. And we’ve just started a programme of refurbishment that will see two of our ships join the Thomson Platinum collection – the next step in our modernisation plans.
You have recently announced major capital programme to upgrade your two owned vessels. What were the factors behind that decision?
Moving two of our ships to sit under Platinum Cruises is the next step in modernising our cruises in line with Thomson’s strategy of delivering unique holiday experiences – offering getaways that customers cannot buy elsewhere. Two of our strongest performing ships have been selected to offer Platinum Cruises. With 90% of customers rating the Thomson Dream and the Thomson Celebration as good or excellent in our customer satisfaction questionnaires, they are the perfect choice.
Once the two owned Thomson ships are upgraded will they operate at a different price point to your other non-owned vessels?
Many factors determine the price of a cruise, and the cost base is just one of them. Price changes tend to be driven, in the most part, by market demand and desirability of the destination.
What is the target market for the Thomson ships?
Our core customer base is 45+ couples, but our latest marketing campaign is targeted more at those who are new to Thomson Cruises and a slightly younger demographic as well.
You also operate the Island Cruise brand. Where does that brand fit in and is that brand targeting a different market segment?
Island Cruises is the sister brand to Thomson Cruises, and it’s a very laid back product. It’s fully all inclusive, which makes it great value for money. It has buffet service as standard, there’s no dress code on board and there’s no formal night.
Why did you take the brand all-inclusive and are there plans for the Thomson brand to follow?
There were a number of reasons behind the move to all inclusive, firstly the majority of our customers were choosing to travel all inclusive anyway, secondly the move offers a unique selling point to stand out from the crowd and finally Island Cruises is an entry-level product which means value for money and we know that this is very important to our customers. We have always offered it on most of our Thomson ships as an early booking incentive as well.
In these tough trading conditions how do you see your two brands performing over the next couple of years and can you see yields improving?
We’ve got some very tough targets to meet over the next couple of years which reflects our faith in the strength of both brands. We fully expect to continue performing well in what has proven to be a very challenging market.
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