Princess Cruises is converting completely to
electronic ticketing for cruise and airline tickets, claiming to be
the first cruise line to do so.
The new eTickets
program will also provide cruise documents to passengers earlier
than any other company in the industry, as much as 120 days prior
to departure, said Jan Swartz, senior vice president of customer
service and sales for Princess.
The transition will
begin Nov. 17 and roll across the fleet within a few weeks, Swartz
said. The Golden Princess' bookings will be the last to make the
switch, on Dec. 16.
"Consumers are
already so familiar with e-tickets from airlines that the
passengers are very comfortable with this," Swartz said.
Princess has been
developing the program for some time. Travel agencies that were
interested in moving toward e-ticketing ran a test program with
more than 3,000 Princess passengers in the last six months. The
results exceeded the expectations, Swartz said.
"The feedback has
been overwhelmingly enthusiastic, and our customers have told us
what a great convenience it is," she said.
A
reduction in cost
Agents will no longer
have to send tickets to the passengers but can instead direct them
to the Web site. For close-in bookings where the mailing would have
to be expedited, the costs of paper tickets can be particularly
high, Swartz noted.
"This takes a lot of
the cost of doing business out of the equation for the travel
agent," she said.
The eTickets will
replace the second of two mailings all cruise passengers currently
receive. They will continue to receive by mail the pre-cruise
package of shore excursion information, cruise answer book and the
passenger contract.
The actual cruise and
flight tickets and information will be posted online through
Princess's Cruise Personalizer. Passengers will have 24/7 access to
the information, Swartz said, and they can print their boarding
passes and fill out immigration forms there, as well.
"I always felt that
the big, bulky document package was by and large extraneous," said
Jerry Davis, president of Alice Travel in Fairfield, N.J. "Much of
what is in it can be found online. If someone wants a hard copy of
something they feel is important, they can print it."
A
huge benefit
Swartz said that a
huge benefit of the program is that air tickets will be posted 45
days prior to embarkation, meaning that if guests need to make any
changes they will be able to do so much further in advance than
usual. They can also print boarding passes online to hasten the
embarkation process.
If a passenger
prefers a hard copy or doesn't have Internet access, travel agents
can request one from the cruise line.
Princess would not
disclose how much the program would save the company, but Swartz
said it would be "significant"
Travel agents can
learn more about the eTickets program at the line's online training
school, Princess Academy, where a new course outlines the way it
works.
To
contact reporter Johanna Jainchill, send e-mail to [email protected].