Norwegian Cruise Line, the contemporary market unit in Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (NCLH) group, will drive yields higher by diversifying its itineraries to create scarcity of offerings, said Frank Del Rio, President and Chief Executive Officer of NCLH.
“Looking at the Norwegian brand, just yesterday, we announced one of our most ambitious and diverse itinerary offerings in recent years. This diversified deployment is another example of exchanging of best practices between brands. In this case, we are weaving in the concept of itinerary scarcity that has proven successful at Oceania and Regent into the Norwegian deployment strategy,” he said in a conference call earlier this week.
This involves diversifying itineraries not only for repositioning voyages, but more importantly for seasonal and year-round regional and homeport deployments. “Itinerary scarcity breaks up the glut of repetitive sailings or milk runs that in essence tend to commoditize voyages in a given deployment. Whereas in the past, the Norwegian brand focused on freedom, flexibility and choice in the on-board experience, we are now taking these important attributes and expanding them to be in the destination experience as well,” del Rio said.
He used a couple of examples to demonstrate this new itinerary development concept. “First is diversification of offerings with an entirely new group of itineraries. Using the expertise of the Oceania and Regent itinerary development team, we've crafted a deployment plan for Norwegian Star to begin sailing to Asia and Australia targeting Western guests.”
Norwegian Cruise Line has received appeals from loyal guests to offer sailings in the Australia-Asia region, where it last had a ship 15 years ago. “Echoing this sentiment is a fairly vociferous and growing group of Australians and New Zealanders who have sailed on Norwegian ships in other parts of the world and who have requested time and time again that we bring our unique Freestyle offering down under. Norwegian Star's seasonal deployment will satisfy both contingents and mark the brand's return to the region after a 15-year absence,” del Rio commented.
"The second example is one of diversification of itineraries in some of Norwegian's most popular homeports. In the past, Norwegian was known for having almost exclusively seven-day identical and repetitive sailings or again, milk runs from certain ports, resulting in weeks and weeks of supply with no differentiation."
