Crystal Cruises recently celebrated their 23rd Sales Achievement Awards with a gala celebration onboard Crystal Serenity sailing from London to Lisbon.
Crystal’s premier travel partners comprised about 150 travel agents making for a full ship – but, honestly, Serenity has so many spacious public areas and venues, she never seems crowded or busy.
The gala is clearly a coveted invitation as many of the successful agents onboard were discussing how to ensure they maintain and grow their business in order to ensure an invitation again for next year. Fifty of the agencies being honoured recorded at least $1 million in Crystal sales and 23 had exceeded $2 million. 58% of Crystal’s total revenues are derived from their national accounts.
The Canadian contingent: Ian Biddlecombe, TST Travel; Gerri Grant,
The Cruise Professionals; Margaret Biddlecombe, TST Travel;
Karen Scott-Caplice, District Sales Manager, Crystal Cruises, Eastern
Canada; Aida Vincelli & Mary Jean Tully, The Cruise Professionals;
Chris Lackstrom, Ensemble; Loretta Darcy, The Cruise Professionals;
Stephanie Anevich, Vision Travel & Peter Nowicki, District Sales Manager,
Crystal Cruises, Western Canada. Absent... Ruby Silvertown, The Travel
Network, Toronto
On this sailing, it was most interesting to be able to sit in on the Q & A sessions where agents’ suggestions, concerns and questions were addressed. This was a very committed and engaged group who demand a lot from their partner because they want to keep delivering a strong luxury product to their clientele.
Although Crystal’s “Book Now” pricing policy is very popular and successful – and is the right bet at least 80% of the time, their closer in upgrade promotions on soft sailings raised the hackles of a number of the participants onboard. They needed a solution to appease their clients who had bought into the Buy Now offer only to become aware of a better opportunity closer in.
This issue was raised during the 1st Q & A session onboard and by the 2nd session, Crystal announced that, thanks to the suggestion of one of the agents onboard, they were preparing an adaptation to that policy whereby weaker sailings promo’s would no longer offer a guaranteed stateroom. The immediate response was a hearty round of applause.
Clearly, Crystal is willing to listen and attempt to address and adapt based on the feedback they receive from their partners. I was surprised to hear just how flexible they can be - welcoming any requests to adapt check in and boarding times wherever port services allow. If your clients' flights arrive in the middle of the night while the ship is preparing to sail the following day, Crystal will do its best to accommodate their check in, processing and reception onboard.
The Romantica Strings serenade guests returning from
their shore excursion
Crystal’s top producing agent once again, Mississauga’s Cruise Professionals’ Mary Jean Tully asked Crystal to start promoting themselves to the 40-45 year old demographic to help expand the agents' market for Crystal... She doesn't feel they are sufficiently getting the word out that crystal has the product and value to attract the children of many of its current cruisers, many of whom are often in their 70's. And, those peoples' kids aren't inclined to buy the same product as their parents. But, with the new lineup of running, cycling and walking shore excursions, cutting edge dining experiences and its relaxed ambiance, the product is definitely not just for the blue rinse set. Mary Jean asked Crystal to start promoting themselves in fitness and health focussed consumer magazines to start getting the word out to the next generation.
The line certainly does appeal to a well-heeled set, with their onboard shops offering Sama eyewear that retails for up to $100,000 (jewel encrusted, of course). The record onboard bling sale was for a $350,000 piece of jewellery. Wonder if they declared that little trinket at customs on their return? But, despite the ultra luxe tastes of some of Crystal’s guests, the overall ambiance is very low key, friendly and relaxed.
Although Crystal’s clearly stated policy is that there will be no solicitation of any kind on board, their future cruise sales desk is doing a booming business. From the past 2 sailings alone, they will be paying $2.4 million in commission to travel agents on future cruises sold. Some of those sales were for extensions of current sailings... one couple onboard had just completed the 108 day World Cruise and had decided to extend on the repositioning cruise to the Med as well as a subsequent sailing... they were going to be on board for a total of 137 days.
Evening cocktails in the Palm Court
Crystal will be the 1st to market with their 2016/2017 pricing and sailings, which will include their return to Alaska as well as a repeat of their popular New Years Eve in Sydney Harbour experience.
Crystal has been investing heavily in refurbishing both Serenity and Symphony having spent a total of $57 million on the former and $45 million on the latter in the past year alone. The renovations to several areas of the ships will continue again in November, but on Serenity, some of the most significant changes have been made to their dining venues.
We were lucky to be entertained and informed about Crystal’s new contemporary food concepts in both the Crystal Dining Room and Tastes dinner menu (on Deck 12 – the previous location of the indoor pool).
This was my 1st Crystal sailing, but all of my experienced cruising companions seemed to agree that their dining options have really kicked it up a notch, not only with their specialty restaurants Silk Road (with Nobu Matsushisa’s cuisine) and Prego’s upscale Italian fare, but, the main dining room is wowing everyone with their New Modern Cuisine selections which employ innovative techniques in food science to create foams, gels, crystals, shapes, colours and heat resistant flavoured snow to amazing effect and flavour.
Our food science presentation
It’s all very high tech and their chefs have had to become adept at employing pacojets, hydrocolloids, spherification, smoke and spray guns to enhance the flavours and presentation of their meals. It is staggering to witness how intricate the presentations are... and they all arrive in timely, perfectly presented and prepared succession. None of us could imagine how much effort went into creating and delivering on such an extensive menu.
Along with choices from their “Classics” menu selections – everything changes each evening and really, the only difficult thing I had to do all week was to make a decision from the enticing offerings.
That isn’t as difficult in Tastes where lunch and dinner options are based on “Global Street Food”. Their offerings must have derived from some pretty good neighbourhoods. Tastes was developed in partnership with Sapphire Restaurant Chef Azmin Ghahreman in the cooking styles of classic and nouvelle French; Mediterranean, Hawaiian Pacific Rim, Asian, Middle Eastern, Modern Australian, American Southwest and American Pacific Coast – all beautifully presented tapas style to share with your table mates. I can also attest to the fact that all of the selections are delicious since I couldn’t help over indulge and tried just about everything.
It was a pleasure to participate in an event that not only showcased the refurbishments onboard Crystal Serenity, but also to be able to hear from the experts who have developed a clientele for the luxury cruise market as to what they liked most about what Crystal has to offer... click here to find out.
Another surprise for me on this trip was my return flight on Sata, the airline of the Azores. With our cruise ending in Lisbon, I was booked on a direct flight home to Toronto with an enroute stop at Ponta Delgada. Sata is operating a very comfortable A310-330 aircraft with both business class and economy configuration. The legroom is quite spacious in economy and the onboard service particularly friendly. They also served the best coffee and local Azores grown tea I’ve ever had inflight. The interior cabins looked quite new and fresh, despite this likely being an older aircraft offering only a few drop down screens down the middle of the cabin for inflight entertainment. So, don’t hesitate to offer this product to your clientele... but, suggest they bring along their own ipads.
Edie Rodriguez - Starting her own Story
