Carnival Cruise Lines recently rolled out Fun Ship 2.0, a series of enhancements and celebrity partnerships that will debut on the Carnival Liberty later this fall, and on several other ships in the line's fleet during the coming months. Cruise editor Donna Tunney talked with line CEO Gerry Cahill about the innovations.
Q: How did you come up with the innovations for Fun Ship 2.0?
A: Fun Ship 2.0 came up for a couple reasons. Several of us had a feeling we wanted to create unique branded experiences in specific spaces on the ships. We wanted to create destinations, and you saw some of that on the Carnival Magic. Around the same time, we did a lot of consumer survey work. We surveyed over 4,000 people in three ways. We surveyed our past guests and the guests of other lines, and those who recently did a land-based vacation; then we had focus groups talk about our product and what they were looking for; and finally we did one-on-one interviews with guests. As a result of those three efforts, we came away with a fairly clear picture of what the person who is attracted to Carnival Cruise Lines is looking for, and what types of changes would be of value to our guests.
Q: Among the line's new partners are the comedian George Lopez and Food Network star Guy Fieri. How did you select them?
A: First of all, the credit for Fun Ship 2.0 does not go to me. It was done by the senior team here. They were the driving force in getting this done. When we talked about associating with other brands for celebrity experts, it was pretty clear to us. There are a lot of celebrity chefs out there, but the most important thing was that they had to fit with the brand. Our guests are fun-loving and outgoing. So the senior team went down their list of criteria, looking at chefs and comedians, at Hasbro, and figured out who and what would fit our guest profile. The partners looked at us real hard and we looked at them real hard before we signed any papers.
Q: Looking at the Lopez partnership, for example, was there feedback about the onboard comedy productions that implied it needed a shot in the arm?
A: It's actually the opposite. It turned out that onboard entertainment, including comedy, scores the highest today. What we learned from our surveys and focus groups was that laughing is hugely important to our guests. So we looked at it as a opportunity to take an area where we were already strong and capitalize on it even more.
Q: How much time will George Lopez spend on Carnival ships?
A: He will sail; it remains to be seen how often. He's going to work with us to make some modifications to improve what we have. But he has access to his own group of young comedians, and he is going to give us access to those same comedians. So it means we will have a whole new talent pool.
Q: From the travel sellers' perspective, how does celebrity branding help an agent sell a ship, or a line?
A: There are a lot of people who know these celebrities, and it says something about our product that we are associated with them. Those attracted to Guy Fieri will probably be attracted to our brand. He has a great way of dealing with people, so by associating with us it's an endorsement of our product. We are trying to attract people who have never cruised before. That's part of the reason for doing this. We compete with other lines, but our big competitor is the noncruiser. All of the celebrity partnerships we have are quality names, all are well known to our target customer, and they will help elevate our product even further.
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