Princess Cruises recently debuted a $20 million "Come Back New" branding campaign. Jan Swartz, who joined Princess in 2001 was named the line's president in November, spoke with cruise editor Tom Stieghorst about the campaign and her new role at Princess.
Q: Explain the concept of "meaningful traveler."
A: Our research found that there is a large and growing segment of consumers who look for more meaningful experiences in their lives. And travel is a way to see beautiful, historical or natural places. It's a way to taste new flavors and learn about new languages and cultures. And it's also a way to reconnect with family and friends. An increasing number of people view travel as a means of increasing the enrichment of their life. "Meaningful traveler" is a large segment, only a small portion of which has taken a cruise.
Q: How big is the meaningful traveler segment?
A: The size of that group is about 19 million people today. On top of that, it's a growing segment.
Q: "Come Back New" will be the first Princess TV advertising in a decade. Why go back to TV?
A: The campaign is multimedia. It has dimensions on TV, in radio, in digital, in a large way in pre-roll, like on Hulu, where people are watching TV in the digital world, as well as in magazines. What TV offers that some of the other media do not have is scale, the ability to reach large numbers of people quite efficiently. To the extent this campaign is designed to speak to meaningful travelers who may not have cruised before, television is a useful mechanism for doing that.
Q: The Regal Princess is coming in May. How will it differ from the Royal Princess?
A: She will be quite similar to her sister. The new venues on Royal are performing very well. There are very minor modifications. We're adding another pool. We're changing the Princess Live television studio, so that external facing wall will be opened up to make it more welcoming and accessible. On the Regal, we have made some modifications to allow passengers to walk [more] on the promenade. They won't be able to go all the way around, but there will be more walking space.
Q: There are some very good prices on Princess' short cruises. What is the demand for those? Will they be back in 2015?
A: We can't comment on demand. It's obviously early days about how much the short cruise product will factor into our long-term deployment, as we revisit those decisions every year. We're going to be watching very closely how the rest of this season plays out.
Q: Princess is going to offer cruises from China for the first time this year, and you are expanding cruises from Japan. Does Princess expect to go further in Asia beyond these two countries?
A: There are growing populations in many Asian countries that have the same interests in exploring the world. It's also early days for us in Asia, although Princess has been sailing to Asia for 25 years. We have sold those itineraries over the 25 years to North Americans, predominantly. The recent increase in the number of cruises that we're offering in Japan and China are also opportunities for North American travel agents to sell their experienced cruise clients on some never-been-done-before itineraries.
Follow Tom Stieghorst on Twitter @tstravelweekly.