The art of itinerary planning and home port selection according to Giora Israel

‘The key elements for selecting a home port are the guest experiences and expectations’, stated Israel during a keynote at Seatrade Cruise Med in Málaga.

Key sound bites when selecting a home port

‘Is there a marquee value to the home port?

‘Is there airlift or an airport? There is a difference between the two.

‘Do you have a port facility that can grow and do you have good port infrastructure?

‘Even though you just fly into a port and leave on a ship from that very port, that port has some marquee value to the people.

‘British people like to sail out of Barbados, even if they never stay in Barbados. They like to sail out of Barbados.

‘It's a marquee value: “I'm going to Barbados to go on a cruise there”.

‘Germans who like to fly to Palma de Mallorca to sail on a ship that never calls on any other port in the Balearic Islands. But they're sailing out of it.

‘And that's very important.

‘It is a key selection because when you look at European cruise lines, where they operate from, it's a lot based on the desirability, whether that port has some marquee value.

‘Not all people will stay before and after,’ shared Israel.

48% of the hotel occupancy of the Barcelona hotels is pre and post cruise business.

The same applies to Greece with large numbers of tourists who fly into Greece pre and post.

‘So it has an additional benefit to the community, if not directly to the port, from being an attractive port.

‘But it doesn't mean that marquee value is the only criteria,’ he stressed.

Difference between airport and airlift

‘Let's understand an airport.

‘There is a difference between an airport and an airlift.

‘Of course, you cannot have an airlift without having an airport.

‘So it's interesting to note that generally, Europeans for faraway and mid distance destinations will use charter air, whereby Americans in 99% of the cases, as well as Chinese and in the future Indians will use schedule air.

‘The difference is not that Americans don't like charter air, but the cruise line in the US are selling a national product.

‘America is too big to fill even one aeroplane from one city.

‘When generally the cruise lines are selling into 240 airports. So they need to depend on the hub and spoke system of the major airline.

‘When you see an AIDA ship or a TUI ship sailing in the Caribbean they only use charters. Why?

‘Because for Germans, if we have one 777 from Berlin and one from, let's say, Hanover, and one or two out of Frankfurt or Munich, you cover 75% of German population within 90 minutes drive from an airport.

‘So Europeans will use by far more charter air, and Americans will use almost only schedule air.

‘There is a small airport called La Romana in the southern part of the Dominican Republic. It has one runway. It has two gates, and that's it. And it has a parking area, and they are homporting 6,000 passenger ships, although they don't turn around the whole 6,000 they will have in the morning suddenly eight 777s landing there.

‘They don't need customs and immigration because they're coming with a European passport, which the Dominican Republic accepts.

‘And then they just go to the ship and leave with a ship.

So, Israel stressed, ‘it's a very important to understand the differentiation between the two.’

Good port infrastructure needed

‘A cruise line will never start an itinerary with a small ship if it has any hope for it to grow.

‘So they may start with a 2,000 passenger ship only to test the market and if it goes well immediately thereafter we'll go to 4,000 or 5,000 or 10,000.

‘So if a line knows you can grow or have a bigger berth that can be converted, it will make you more likely to be selected because we have a horizon.

‘Royal Caribbean, NCL, Carnival, P&O and Costa, all these companies always have 1 or 2 smaller ships.

‘And these are the ships that opening markets and they're testing it.

‘So that's why a port facility that can grow is so important in the calculation.

‘So what we need is a sourcing and itinerary alignment, and only if a port fits into the alignment between what the physical conditions are, what the itinerary module is and what the sourcing, where the people come from and why we can have a match.

Source markets

‘Europeans who fly to the Caribbean, if they are French, they like to go to Guadeloupe and Martinique.

‘If they're British, they would like to go to former colonies.

‘They love very much to go to Antigua and Saint Lucia and sail from Barbados, or vice versa.

‘And it's extraordinary for me to have seen the itineraries when they were developed for Costa, P&O and AIDA in the Caribbean and the same three lines in the Mediterranean.

‘They're all doing seven day itineraries from say Barcelona or Civitavecchia, from the same port, and you see these three national brands and they have completely different itineraries.

‘So it's almost strange for a lot of people to realise that American ships rarely go to Palma de Mallorca because Americans don't know much about Palma de Mallorca.

‘And when they cross the pond to come on a cruise, they want to go to more of the legacy names they'd like to go to Civitavecchia or Venice and Barcelona.

Same demographics, different psychographics

‘The demographics of the source market is also key: In the US, Carnival had has two brands, Holland America and Princess.

‘They operate on the same demographic but believe it or not, they have a different psychographics.

‘So their demographic is age, average age, income, etc. and psychographic is what do they think about themselves as people.

‘And we have learned that people have different psychographics and different demographics.

‘And even if they have the same demographic, the psychographic is different.

‘So Holland America ship from Barcelona in seven days will be, oddly enough, different from the Princess one.

‘And the same applies to many other of the big brands.

Selling the itinerary

‘In reality, in the end of the day, these amazing large companies, all of them, with no exception, are extraordinary marketing companies.

‘And you know, the definition of marketing?

‘Marketing is identifying the needs and wants of your potential customer and satisfying them.

‘We go where the people want to go or where they think they want to go.

‘Can the product, when we put it all together, be sold?

‘First of all, the revenue and cost metrics.

‘What does it cost to come into the port? What does it cost in port?

‘How many tours can we sell there? What are the opportunities there?

‘So if an individual port fits in this model between technical abilities, the perception in the market by a segment of the market, and how this whole thing comes together.

‘And that's why I'm calling itinerary planning art.

‘Honestly, it's the most complex thing I've witnessed happening,’ Israel concluded.