At the invitation of Travel Weekly, the chief editors of Travel + Leisure, Conde Nast Traveler, National Geographic Traveler, Budget Travel, USA Today's travel section and Town & Country Travel convened in the Milton Berle Room at the Friars Club in New York for the second annual Travel Weekly Consumer Travel Editors Roundtable.
Travel Weekly Editor in Chief Arnie Weissmann moderated, focusing on what the editors really think about product segments created by the travel industry itself: cruises, hotels and tour operations. The editors also shared their impressions about the trend toward "green" travel, the virtues and shortcomings of blogs and travel agents and the misery of being on a tour when you really dislike the guide.
(Editor's note: The original transcript has been edited for length, and the chronology has been altered to keep dialogue about specific topics together even though the topic may have recurred at intervals during the course of the conversation.)
Arnie Weissmann, editor in chief, Travel Weekly: How important is cruising to your readership?
Keith Bellows, editor, National Geographic Traveler: Much more than it ever has been.
Klara Glowczewska, editor in chief, Conde Nast Traveler: Very, very important.
Weissmann: Have all of you cruised? Do you like cruising?
Glowczewska: I have. Sometimes, in a sense, only cruising will do. It allows you to get to certain places with a certain ease. And, particularly now, ships are paying more attention to the itinerary and to the shore excursions, and the more they do that, the more attractive cruising is going to become for people who aren't just there because they're 100 years old and can't get around any other way.
Nancy Novogrod, editor in chief, Travel + Leisure: What was eye-opening for me when I first cruised is that it wasn't all older, retired people. I should have known that, except I didn't quite believe it. My recollection of cruising was from taking my in-laws off for alumni cruises, looking at all these very elderly people and thinking "Oh God, I don't want to go there."
It's evolving by the minute in terms of the athleticism of some of the offerings, the food, the spas, the onshore offerings and the seriousness of educational opportunities.
They are definitely seeking the more engaged traveler. On the most recent cruise I took, I was interested in a destination, the Black Sea, and didn't know how to do it myself. I knew I wanted to go to Odessa and really didn't want to stay there. We went because of the opportunity for education.
You know, Regent has that Circles of Interest, where you can sign up for a particular program and really enhance your knowledge on shore and on ship and meet like-minded people, whether it's cuisine or photography or hobbies or serious interests.
Erik Torkells, editor, Budget Travel: I have not cruised. But we're all busier, and cruising is easy, you know? Everything is taken care of. There's some real appeal to just getting on the ship and knowing it's all right there.
Weissmann: With all this convenience, why then haven't you cruised?
Torkells: This is a conversation that I get into every time I meet with cruise people. I don't feel like, at this stage of my life, it's right for me. That doesn't mean that I think it's not right for everybody else.
Novogrod: They desperately want it to be right for you.
Weissmann: And what is it that's not right for you?
Torkells: My big fear with cruising is having to wait 20 minutes in line to get on or off the ship every time it's in port. I just think I'm so impatient I'll go insane.
I started planning a cruise for my sister and her daughter, and my partner looked at me and said, "You can't do that. You'll go nuts, you'll go bananas, and you know it's true."
But I had the urge. It was a Disney cruise and would be perfect. My sister loves Disney more than even my niece. But at some point, my fear got the better of me and I thought, well, I don't like waiting in lines. As the ships get bigger and bigger and bigger, that is my concern.
And I had this thing where I thought I would be managed a little bit too much. As a consumer, I'm worried that they're moving me here and moving me there, and if I want to go over here I'm going to pay a surcharge. All that stuff. I understand there are different levels of pricing for different activities and different amenities, but I don't want to always feel like I'm on the wrong end of that.
Glowczewska: That's less so on the smaller ships.
Torkells: Absolutely. But the smaller ships are more expensive. And you know ... this is going to sound funny coming from someone who lives in New York, but I don't actually like to be around a lot of people that much. So when I travel, I want a situation that's different.
Veronica Stoddart, travel editor, USA Today: You have hit on something very important. Cruising is a very social experience. Our TV critic at the paper, that's all he does. He cruises several times a year on his own vacation time. He's just rabid about it, and I asked him once why, and he says, because it's sociable. He's a single guy. It's a way to meet people. It's a way to have a fun experience with others that maybe he wouldn't have on his own in a city somewhere.
Heidi Mitchell, editor, Town & Country Travel: I was a total anti-cruise snob, but I took a great cruise and had a fantastic time. Now I think about it all the time, especially because we live in New York and you can take a taxi to the ship and practically, you know, walk there. And then go to the Caribbean and come back in four days. I guess I don't care about the masses, the tons of people around me.
Weissmann: Define an anti-cruise snob.
Mitchell: As a teenager, I had gone on a couple of cruises with my family and didn't really have great experiences. People were sick, and the food wasn't good, so I thought that's what a cruise must be. And then I went on a great cruise, and the food was great and the people were nice, service was amazing, the ports were nice and we had a lovely time. The industry has evolved over that time, but it's hard for me to get friends to do it with me. I think there's still that perception that it's either lowbrow or too mass. But I think it's evolving to appeal to an even larger audience.
My good experience cruising was doing the multigenerational thing. For me it was great. Some of us had been to the places on the itinerary, some hadn't. We had kids and we had grandparents. We would get to a port and be, like, "I'm actually not going to even get off the ship, I'm going to the spa today," and, you know, the in-laws could go and explore the town. I think it gave everybody different levels of entry. They could spend the day going on an excursion and going to museums or hanging out with the kids and doing nothing. Lots of options, and it was very easy. We didn't have to plan.
Glowczewska: They can really segment the experience now. I cruised twice on a big ship when I was much younger. I crossed the Atlantic with my family, once on the Queen Elizabeth, the old one, and once on a French ship called [the] France. I wasn't into cuisine or spas -- they didn't even have that stuff on ships. Formal dining was about the extent of the pampering. But there was something fantastic about being on the deck, and I still remember the views, being out in the middle of the Atlantic. The ship kept creaking at night.
I haven't done it since I was sort of a sentient human being. But I could see the appeal, even though I don't think I would, right now, purchase a ticket. But I still like having that memory, sort of like having a Titanic moment. I can see the appeal of that. I get it.
Bellows: I would never have gone on a cruise five years ago. Never. But now I understand that someone is orchestrating the event, like a conductor, in a way that [allows me to] experience the place in a much deeper way. That's a whole different opportunity for all of us.
And it's a way to get in and to get out. I wouldn't go cruising to Fort Lauderdale because I can do that. But, boy ... the Black Sea? For sure. Or to someplace in India or someplace that I couldn't normally dive into in a way that I'm going to get something out of. Yeah, that's the thing. And I think that's going to hold true not just for cruising but for biking and canoeing and sailing and everything else. We want to be able to get deeper into the places we go.
Stoddart: I think cruising is actually going in two directions. One is the self-contained experience. Look at all the amenities that suddenly have become available, from rock climbing to bowling alleys, ice skating to surfing onboard. That's for somebody who just wants that fun in the sun. They don't really care where they are. And then the other way it's going is all about the destination.
Novogrod: I would say they are also heading to more and more customization. You know, often I'm not so interested in the full shore excursion. I have very particular interests, and I would like to be able to satisfy them.
Just one other comment: I think work still needs to be done on food. It may not be every cruise line, but I was pretty surprised on one of them. The food was not ... I mean, simple food is just not good enough.
Weissmann: Because it wasn't upscale?
Novogrod: Well, it's not a question of upscale. I mean just good. For instance, Oceania isn't necessarily a cruise line recognized for its food. They're premium, but they are able to deliver really good food. I wish -- and I haven't been on every cruise line -- but I just wish I felt more certain that I'd be able to get food that made me happy. And not just in the special restaurants.
Torkells: And all of a sudden they are making you pay more to eat in the restaurant where you don't have to wait in line. And as the editor of Budget Travel, you can imagine how I feel about that.
Stoddart: If I could make a suggestion to the cruise lines it would be to stay at shore later. They always tend to sail as the sun is setting, and often a destination doesn't come to life until the evening, when the locals go out and party, and you miss out on all of that entirely. EasyCruise was the first one to glom onto that, and they do that. They leave in the middle of the night, so you have that experience at the destination.
Weissmann: Heidi, you seem to be a proponent of big-ship cruising. What about Erik's fears about waiting in lines?
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