Cruise lines revamp res systems

Cruise lines are streamlining their booking engines, making it easier to customize fare searches, which could in turn make it faster for agents to deliver quotes and hone in on the best available deals.

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. recently announced enhancements to its booking system that have been three years in the making. And Carnival Cruise Lines said it has restyled its GoCCL travel agent portal, with one big improvement being the customization of fare searches.

Norwegian Cruise Line said last week that it was also working on a major overhaul of its reservations process.

The changes will enable agents to type in qualifiers at the start of the search, including age, residence, military status, loyalty program rankings and other items that frequently trigger discounts.

Royal Caribbean said its program will then crunch the information and spit back only the fare offers that are applicable to the passenger’s situation. The system will also show when a higher ticket price can be combined with an onboard credit to create a better value than a lower stand-alone fare.

“It’s much easier for agents to sell more efficiently to our guests, because they’re seeing all of the promotions in the system in front of them,” said Diana Block, vice president of revenue management for Royal Caribbean International. “Historically, we’ve had to send them an email or a flyer, and they had to remember, so it wasn’t easy for the travel agent to sell us.”

Although it might seem easy to add a few pre-qualifiers to the search process, that can be deceptive, said Bill Martin, Royal Caribbean International’s chief information officer. All the channels that need access to inventory and price information worldwide have different system requirements, he said.

“The back end of this is incredibly sophisticated, so that the front end can be incredibly simple,” Martin said. “The level of integration is really, really big.”

One channel that will use Royal Caribbean’s engine is the direct-to-consumer channel, raising the question of how much personal information a guest has to give up to get a fare quote.

Block said none at all, to get a generally available fare.

“We do have better deals,” she said, “and that’s where we’re asking for some personal information.” She said none of the personal data will be stored.

Carnival’s changes to GoCCL, in addition to more customized fares, include a simplified way to add as many as three more guests to an existing booking, plus a streamlined cabin display and selection process, including a way to search for cabins by deck.

Also, group allotments can be decreased to less than eight cabins. Carnival said it will announce more changes by the end of the year.

Norwegian has been working on an enhancement to its reservations system that it says is the biggest in 50 years. Andy Stuart, executive vice president of global sales, said the system “has a number of different components, which includes a portal to every single tool a travel agent will need from Norwegian, in addition to state-of-the-art booking technology.”