FORT LAUDERDALE -- The next frontier in cruising and cruise
ship design is personalization, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. chairman Richard
Fain said.
Fain took an audience at Travel Weekly's CruiseWorld
conference on a short tour of the evolution of modern cruising. He said after
the purpose of ships transitioned from transportation to leisure vacations,
cruise lines began to refine their ships to make them look and feel more like
yachts.
In the 1980s and '90s, the design model shifted to upscale
hotels and then evolved further to become modeled on cities. For example, Royal
Caribbean's Oasis-class ships were filled with neighborhoods and parks.
The next big change will be giving people an individual
vacation in a mass context. "How much more can we offer you what you want?"
Fain asked. "This is no longer the same vacation that everyone has,"
he said. "People want a vacation tailored to them."
Fain said cruise lines can use technology to deliver on that
desire. RCCL is working on a shipboard technology upgrade called Excalibur that
will let passengers use smartphones and an app to make individual choices, make
reservations and do other tasks that make vacations more individuated.
On another topic, Fain said the cruise industry should
declare victory in its long battle to correct the misperceptions and myths that
cruising is too sedentary, too confined, likely to result in sea sickness, and
so forth.
"We have a product that people now do understand, do
relate to, do understand is a good vacation that should be part of their
consideration set," Fain said. "We have to, in effect, give up a little
bit of the inferiority complex we've had. We've won that war."