South Florida cruise event specialist Landry & Kling has unveiled Seasite.com, a website that the agency claims could revolutionize the cruise meetings and incentives market.
Jo Kling, co-founder of Landry & Kling, which specializes in cruise ship charters and meetings at sea, said Seasite.com was the first online platform dedicated to the cruise meetings market.
Seasite's target market is anyone who is doing group events, and specifically meetings and convention planners.
"We've designed the site for all kinds of third parties," Kling said. "They don't have access to the cruise lines and relationships that travel agents do."
The website has meetings-specific information about 35 cruise brands and more than 250 ships, such as the number and sizes of meetings spaces, function room capacities, outdoor function areas, group dining information, photo galleries, an inventory of cabins by category, audiovisual equipment and communications technology.
Kling said that much of this information has never before been published.
"If you are looking for a dance group, we have dance floor sizes," she said. "We have sizes of every dining room and function room. ... To have this access to information is a breakthrough."
She said it took her company more than a year to gather the information and make it user-friendly. The site simplifies the ship comparison process by enabling comparisons of up to five ships at once by itineraries and ship profiles, and by meetings planners' specific needs, such as by the capacity of the ships' largest function room.
Seasite.com claims that by enabling group travel buyers to easily compare the price and value of the ship vs. a landside destination, they will see that hosting a meeting on ship saves a group 25% to 40%.
Kling said the cruise lines were happy to provide ship information, because they want to increase their share of the meetings and incentives market.
"The cruise industry is eager for this site to take off," she said.