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RCCL targets Italian market
October10, 2005

Royal Caribbean will make 30 calls and Celebrity 32 in 2006. Royal Caribbean will operate in the Mediterranean in 2006 with Voyager of the Seas the largest cruise ship to operate in the Mediterranean and Splendour of the Seas in order to give the market the new products it is requesting.

Lina Mazucco general manager of RCCL-Italia said “Cruise in Italy is becoming more and more a mass market as a result of the constant increase in capacity and the continuing pressure on prices. This is no doubt positive and enables more people to take a cruise. In addition as the market matures space is created for a different type of product aimed at the medium/high level of the market. This is the area where Royal Caribbean aims to introduce its products that are innovative, highly technological and 4 star in service.

Celebrity Cruises will offer exclusivity with a taste of luxury and itineries without equal such as those offered by Celebrity Xpeditions to the Galapagos islands”.

International and national market research carried out by RCCL concluded that enormous potential exists in Italy and in Europe for holiday cruises but that the public is not satisfied with the products currently on offer. There are 142 million holiday makers in Europe of which 33% would like to take a cruise. Italy is the country with the highest potential with a 11 million cruise holiday makers with 50% of the total wishing to take cruise but with a high proportion not yet going on cruises.

Voyager of the Seas on its first ever season in Mare Nostrum will depart from Civitavecchia in the middle part of the Italian summer to make weekly cruises in the Mediterranean. Civitavecchia will also be home port for Celebrity Cruises Galaxy for the third year. Splendour of the Seas will operate from Venice on a regular basis from May to October. After a successful 2005 for RCCL operating from Venice, Celebrity Cruises will base Millennium, the second most beautiful vessel in the world in Venice in 2006 for the fourth consecutive year.

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And they think a Voyager Class vessel is satisfying? Also in Europe there is a market for such "Las Vegas resort" vessels, but how long will it take until cruise operators understand that there is big market for smaller ships? (I know there are some - but beside easycruise these ships are only targeting at niche markets)

[ 10-11-2005: Message edited by: Ernst ]

I haven't visited many cruiseships but i have often heard, that the ship was too small, or too old, or not glitzy enough.

I think the difference will be in the details, like the size of the casino, the way children and families are welcomed/treated, the quality and variation of the food, etc, if cruise ships can really deliver on the sport/action front (about which i have really my doubts)if there are many extras to be paid (here the so-called "all inclusive" holidays" are becoming the norm, so cruise companies have to compete with that too)

The advantage of mega-ships is that the price can be reduced, so you can introduce more people to cruising itself, and perhaps some of them will learn more about ships, and appreciate the ships themselves.

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Malcolm wrote:
...I suppose they want to do even better and fight Carnival's Americanized Costa cruise line.

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Not just the Americanized Costa but also the Italian MSC.

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...continuing pressure on prices??? That`s correct...prices are slowly declining....but not those of RCCL or for that matter any US-Cruise company coming to the Med. They are still typically 50 - 100% more expensive than Costa or MSC.

One of the price issues is that neither RCCL nor Carnival uses the "Partner Tariff" that both MSC and also Costa is now using.