Cruise Safety: Who Has Your Back? Jul 24th 2013, 23:45
Cruise lines have recently come under heavy scrutiny by Congress based on a series of mishaps that have beset the industry. It seems that the cruise business can’t get a break as news outlets pounce on any hint of a disruption at sea, no matter how small. There is no let up in the media coverage when something happens and this has a chilling effect on people who have never cruised, but who may be considering giving it a try.
Travel agents sell the vast majority of cruises and that makes them the first call when the latest cruise crisis hits the airwaves, forcing them into crisis manager mode with their clients. As a result, these agents spend a disproportionate amount of time in damage control as opposed to selling.
Now we have Congress getting involved in the discussion, ensuring that more and more questions about cruise safety are going to be raised, potentially raising more doubts in the minds of the traveling public. Where will those doubts get brought up, if at all, in the vacation planning process? More than likely, they will be brought up with the travel agent at the point of sale. Let’s hope these potential customers raise their doubts, if they have any, for it would be far worse to never know they exist.
What does that mean? It means that as the consumer media bashes the cruise industry, travel agents are trying their best to do damage control with their clients. A few years ago, cruise lines stepped away from the media outlets that travel agents listen to for their perspective on selling cruises. Fortunately for travel agents that didn’t stop our three media vehicles from covering the cruise industry and giving agents the tools to handle the concerns of potential buyers.
Vacation Agent magazine, Agent@Home magazine and TravelPulse.com all cover the cruise industry in every issue and in every newsletter. As a result, travel agents never had to deal with the uncertainty when confronted with a cruise incident, and they were armed to provide a rebuttal or overcome any objections, with the facts on cruising closely at hand. Information, regardless of cruise line support, continued to flow to the agents via these outlets, and it continues to flow each and every day. It’s about serving our audience of travel agents and helping meet their information needs when it comes to selling cruises. Cruises still represent 25 to 40 percent of travel agents’ revenues, making it an important segment for us to support.
That support has also extended well beyond just providing information to travel agents. I’ve personally made numerous television appearances to set the record straight about safety at sea. The tide, so to speak, has begun to turn, with two of my more recent interviews seemingly becoming cruise “love fests.” Indeed, a FOX News anchor, with the Costa Concordia image in the background, gushed about her parents going on a cruise…immediately after hearing my response to a question about cruise safety and the real numbers for cruising. In a different interview with a local NBC interview in Philadelphia, the anchor couldn’t say enough good things about how Royal Caribbean responded to its recent incident on Grandeur of the Seas.
Changing perceptions doesn’t happen overnight, but it’s indeed possible to stop the media onslaught and put cruising in the proper light. Travel agents on the front lines are at the forefront of doing just that, and we definitely have their backs!
Mark Murphy is president and CEO of travAlliancemedia, parent of TravelPulse.com, Agent@Home magazine, Vacation Agent magazine, Travel Agent Academy, Virtual Travel Events and Agent Studio.
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