Royal Caribbean Group wants to keep its loyal cruisers within the fold when they're looking for their next vacation. To do that, the company has begun taking customers' highest loyalty status earned by sailing with Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises or Silversea Cruises and applying it to cruises on any of those three brands. Group CEO Jason Liberty spoke with cruise editor Andrea Zelinski about the new status matching program and the power of rewarding loyalty.
Jason Liberty
Q: My read on this decision is that you're trying to get customers who book mostly one brand to try your other brands. Is that accurate?
A: It's less about the brand and more about the experience that the guest is looking to do at that point in time. When they graduate to other segments, they also are looking for different experiences through those segments.
The example of a multigenerational family is a good one. We want to make sure that if you're going to go on a vacation experience, it stays within our family of brands, that you don't need to go outside of our family. One way to help ensure that is by having a loyalty program and system that recognizes you and rewards you within our ecosystem.
Q: How many of your guests cruise on multiple Royal Caribbean Group brands?
A: It's probably somewhere in the 25% to 30% range, whether they're going from Silversea to Royal for multigenerational or Royal to Celebrity, etc. Sometimes it's also about the destination or the experience that they're looking to go after. There are more that sometimes go outside of our ecosystem, as well, but we want to make sure that we're incentivizing them to stay with us.
We are uniquely positioned to do this. We have global brands, we have brands that have very distinct segments that really cover the vast majority of the market. As they float through their vacation experiences, it's about really leveraging the platform of the family of brands that we put together.
Q: How important are loyalty programs in general for your brands?
A: I think that loyalty programs have become a staple with the consumer, just in general. You see it with Starbucks, you see when you're on airlines, in hotels. Of course, cruise is a little bit different because we don't have the earn and the burn that you would have with a business consumer. When you travel, you're collecting loyalty points for that travel that you end up using personally in time. It's a little bit different with us. For our guests, what really matters to them is being recognized and having the additional amenities that come with those changes in status in our loyalty tiers. We have a lot of loyal customers who really want to be recognized. They want to have events and activities that applaud them for their loyalty.
Q: What percentage of your guests are returning clients vs. new-to-brand?
A: A third are new, a third are first-to-brand and then a third are loyalists. And of course, our fleet is growing at the same time. These numbers continue to grow. They like to carry the co-branded credit card, they like to have the awareness or recognition of what they've earned on the ship, they like to also be around each other. So there's also a social element of this. You see this even on social media, where they create groups at these different tiered levels. They like to share their thoughts, their ideas and their experiences, which creates incredible advocacy, as well. It's also a little bit of a social experiment that we've all been living through as we all join different groups for different reasons that support our experiences or our interests.