Face-to-Face: Sean Treacy
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This week, Travel Daily Asia chats to Sean Treacy, Royal Caribbean Cruises’ managing director for Singapore and Southeast Asia, about his company’s regional expansion plans…
Q) Royal Caribbean’s newest ship, Ovation of the Seas, recently arrived in Asia for the first time. How popular were the cruises with Asian guests, and what has the guest feedback been like?
Ovation of the Seas, being the newest, largest and most revolutionary cruise ship in Asia, has created a lot of buzz in the market way before she arrived in Asia, with bookings coming in about nine months ahead, which is relatively fast in the Asian market. The three-night round trip cruise and the 12-night one-way cruise from Singapore in June this year were both fully booked. The feedback from our guests were highly positive given the unique next generation cruise experiences onboard, such as the surf simulator, North Star elevated glass capsule the bumper car rides, circus school and Two70 transformative venue fusing entertainment with technology. Based on the popular demand we have seen for this ship, we have decided to bring her back for another season next year.
Q) You also recently announced that Ovation of the Seas will homeport in Singapore next year. What kind of statement do you think that makes about the Southeast Asian cruise industry?
Ovation of the Seas’ homeporting in Singapore next year means bringing tens of thousands of travellers to the region and injecting millions into the local and regional economies. Our investment reaffirms our commitment to Singapore and the region, and the enormous potential we see in the region’s cruising industry.
Q) Last year you signed a three-year agreement with STB and Changi Airport to promote the Singapore fly-cruise sector. What impact has this had on your business in the first year?
The tripartite agreement is a significant boost for our business plans including marketing and PR efforts for our Singapore homeported cruises, which has helped to grow significantly our source markets in Asia and beyond. We have exceeded our sales targets in terms of overseas guests for the first year under the agreement on both Mariner of the Seas and Voyager of the Seas.
Q) Which Southeast Asian cruises (in terms of duration and destination) are proving the most popular with Royal Caribbean’s customers?
Asian guests tend to book shorter cruises starting from the three-night weekend cruises to Penang or Kuala Lumpur (Port Klang) to four or five nights that include other destinations such as Phuket and Langkawi. Also, those with attractions nearer to the port such as Penang and Phuket are more popular. Guests from other parts of the world prefer the longer cruises of seven nights and above that visit ports further away such as Bangkok (Laem Chabang), Ho Chi Minh City (Phu My), Hue/Danang (Chan May) and Hong Kong which may include overnight stays that let them explore night touring.
Q) Next year you will have three ships homeporting in Singapore. Do you envisage your Southeast Asian capacity increasing even further in future?
In Asia, the penetration rate for cruising is still currently very low but there has been growing interest and attraction from consumers in the recent years so we see a great deal of potential in this region. Our three ships – Ovation of the Seas, Mariner of the Seas and Voyager of the Seas – will be back in Singapore from this October to next May for Royal Caribbean International’s longest-ever homeporting season here, which will run for eight months totalling 55 cruises and expected to bring an estimated 200,000 guests to ports in Southeast Asia. The deployment of these three ships will increase Royal Caribbean’s capacity in 2017 in Southeast Asia by 30% over 2016.
At the same time, more needs to be done to increase consumer and trade awareness for cruising as a vacation option in order for the business to grow. More adequate cruise port and cruise tourism infrastructure in many parts of the region also need to be developed urgently so that more and larger ships can call at these ports and for the creation of newer and more attractive itineraries to keep growing consumers’ interest and numbers.
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