You may, (or may not), also remember a post I wrote last year titled - The Germans are Invading.
In it I quoted leading cruise industry leaders who felt that by the end of this decade the German cruise market would have out-striped the UK cruise market in terms of passenger capacity.
Since then there has been a lot of consumer led speculation and rumours floating around as to when/if the cruise lines would start to chase this growing foreign market.
I can't say I have any first hand knowledge of this but something I thought you might find interesting is this........
Cunard and P&Os, (both very 'British' brands), cruises are booked by travel agents on an online booking engine. This booking system has a drop down menu for almost everything; cruise; date; ship; destination etc.
On the final page the clients details are entered and the drop down box has always included titles like Mr, Mrs, Miss, Ms, Sir, Dr, Lord, Lady etc.
What's interesting though is that recently two new titles were added - Herr and Frau.
You can see the titles here from the screen print above, (you may need to click the picture to enlarge it).
Now here's my question. If these two very iconic British brands are already gearing themselves up for the German market then how long will it be before all the others follow suit?
What are your thoughts?
Happy cruising
Having just returned on the luxury 'ferry' QM2, there is no doubt in my mind that in the case of Cunard at least this is their intended market today. A 15 night cruise for the Brits was in fact split into a number of different segments (in fact if the daily programme was to be believed, it was a hop on hop off for new and departing passengers at nearly every port) with the main one being a 11 night cruise from Hamburg for the German guests who far out numbered the British passengers on board. Not a problem with this, apart from seeing our cruise counter started at day 1 in Hamburg each time we departed. As for our fellow German passengers, most were able to converse in English, whereas it wasn't the case the other way round. QM2, goes where the money is and you can't blame Cunard for pitching at the German market as the local populace love the ship and it's historical links. Just witness the Hamburg 'send off' They even have a separate German programme on board during the day with German speakers and of course they have on board announcements in German that follow every English announcement. The evening entertainment was the only problem for the Germans who had little English as they couldn't understand the English comedian and were walking out of the theatre, but I'd guess that may be us in future as they 'maybe' begin to employ German speaking comedians in future for the German market cruises.
ReplyDeleteI have just returned from a cruise on the Queen Mary 2 one of the stops was Hamburg Germany 1,600 Germans embarked. A disaster for not only the British but also many Americans I spoke to. There were unpleasant incidents between the nations due to the number of Germans and many including myself would not travel again on her under those curcumstances, nor any other ship. A German told an American that they would one day take over the ship which they think is theirs anyway and I think he is sadly right.
ReplyDeleteI also was on board Queen Mary and fully agree with Mrs M Hone and the opinions she has expressed and would not travel on a similar cruise again. It was not a restful cruise with far to much embarking and disembarking of passengers and not the same as previous voyages which I have always enjoyed with Cunard.
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