Behind the Scenes of Carnival Itinerary Planning

Fred Stein, vice president of revenue planning and fleet deployment for

Carnival Cruise Line, and Ugo Savino, Carnival’s director of deployment and itinerary planning, recently joined the FCCA to lift the curtains on their inner-workings to help destinations and stakeholders better understand the craft of deployment and how to choreograph mutual success. A lightly-edited transcript of the conversation follows:

What do you enjoy most about your roles?

FS: I think it’s just amazing to watch all the components that are required to put an itinerary plan together. There’s a host of folks that we have to work with internally to make sure that the itinerary is operable and then the time that we spend with the destinations to work with them together to make sure that the guests are going to have a good experience.

US: To add to what Fred was saying, the process is so complex and articulated, but it’s interesting how many people we bring together, both from outside the organization—namely ports, port representatives, port authorities, tour operators, and so on—and the internal stakeholders that have an impact on and deal with our itinerary planning exercise. This is absolutely critical for us, in my opinion, because only by bringing everybody together can

we create itineraries that are going to be successful and make everybody involved in the itinerary deployment successful.

What most influences passenger experience, and how much does passenger experience impact itinerary planning?

FS: There are two things that influence the experience. Number one, you have to take them to a destination that they will want to visit and have an enjoyable visit once there. And then there’s also an onboard component where the ship has to do a good job of delivering a great experience for the period of time that the guest is not actually in the destination.

US: This is where the role of bringing everybody together becomes so critical because it’s when the itinerary, the cruise, is actually happening, when guests are boarding the ship and visiting destinations with all their expectations—that’s where we can come short, which is definitely not what we want do. We feel the responsibility; when a guest walks on a Carnival ship, they really trust us with their vacation. Four, five, seven days, whatever the duration, they trust us to give them an experience they will remember for a lifetime.

Everything is critical: the number of hours we spend in port, the placement of the days at sea, the ports that we visit, how we prepare the guest for the onboard experience and for boarding the ship to streamline check in, when and how guests book their trip and receive information from their travel agent. Everything plays such a critical role, and guest experience is absolutely our top priority.

Speaking of guest experiences, shore excursions have one of the largest impacts on the experience in a destination, and passengers that prebook cruise line-contracted tours tend to rate destinations higher and spend more money. Why is this?

FS: Our shore excursions team works very closely both with the destination as well as the tour operators to make sure that the tours that are available for purchase through the [cruise] line are really optimized to our guests, as well as to the time that we spend in the destinations. So they make sure that the departure times are right, that the content is something that we believe resonates well with our customer, and so in a sense, the tours are customized for the Carnival guest. When you go outside and purchase the tour independently, it may or may not be exactly in tune with their taste, and I think that’s why the cruise line tours tend to outperform there.

US: I think Fred touched on a very critical point: the whole experience is what our guests want and expect. Not only do we ensure that guests will enjoy our ships’ onboard experience, but we also make those tours an extension of the experience—from professional tour guides and products like the bus to standards and so on. When guests step outside that line of contractors, there’s no guarantee, and ultimately if they come back from a tour, and they’re not happy, their experience will be affected.

What effect does that experience have? How do tours and tour operators impact ratings and itinerary planning?

FS: I think there’s a pretty clear correlation between the quality and variety of tours that are available in a destination and the overall rating that the guest gives that destination because the tour operators that are delivering a great experience make sure that the guest has a great time, and then they tend to rate the destination much more highly.