We have just lost a Cruise booking from a fairly good regular client. we quoted him on a 36 day cruise on the Oriana leaving on 08 Jan 2010.Our Price quoted on the CCS system showed a gross fare of £6149.00 pp with a P&O discount showing as £2767.00 pp leaving a net fare to us of £3382.00pp and another P&O offer of £125.00 per person onboard credit.
We have followed up this with our client who has apologised as he has booked this on line with Cruise Circle part of the Freedom Group, he also mentioned that they had researched P&O direct.
P&O Direct offered a fare of £3212.00 per person undercutting us by £170.00 per person. Having been asked "What fare do we have to beat" by Cruise Circle our clients told them £3043.00 by Cumbria Cruise Club, Cruise Circle offered our clients a fareof £3018.00 per person, which they booked.
Our Commission would have been £372.00 per person and Cruise Circle gave away £364.00 per person in Discount. We Obviously would never have been able to price match earning just £8.00 per person. No Wonder Cruise is in such a mess.
I Have to ask myself why any one Selling Cruise cannot Show to Clients that the Cruise Lines discount of £2767.00 per person is an incredible saving and so not have to offer any further discount, but then Hey P&O go and undercut us anyway.
The difference of £170 pp is nothing as compared to Costa Cruises/ Cruise club partnership. A client came to me about reassurance and information on Costa's Treasures of Far east, they were given a quote of £1739 by Cruise club. The client wanted me to see if there were other cruises to that destination. After spending a lot of time, I found that Costa's itinerary was the best by far. The cruise price on Costa click was £1608 for E4 category and ££1684 for E5 category. I thought that I was the cheaper option.
The customer rang back this morning and told me to book the cruise for 4 people. When I confirmed that it was cruise only, she told me that it was fly cruise with Cruise club. She faxed me the leaflet and provided me the telephone details. I rang cruise club and found that they were selling the same itinerary on 17 Jan 2010 for £1649pp fly cruise. Costa Click gave me the price of £2412pp. I rand reservations and got the price of £2414pp. When I asked that it is a huge price difference, I was told that they have special deals with certain travel agents. I contacted Costa and found a flimsy reply that the difference of £764 could be because they buy at specail rates and add their own flights as compared to £850 flights from Costa.
I have two questions. How could there be that much of a difference from a Travel agent and the cruise company, It matters not how they bought their own flights. Even if I bought cruise only from Costa, i would not have been able to compete.
The commission of £8 with P&O is at least still positive as compared to Costa. I Raved about Costa while the customer was not happy due to bad reviews. Would I sell Costa?
Right now I do not wish to sell a cruise at all. £762 loss is a big one and someone somewhere is making big bucks and it is not Cruise club or other travel agents. I would not be renewing my ACE membership and certainly will not be promoting Costa.
I say good luck to all of these tour operators who have created the discount culture to the level where Travel agents are going under as customer look for cheaper deals on the internet but look at travel agents as sources of information.
I have survived a year in the industry under toughest of conditions working all hours, constantly learning, running a shop, wearing all the hats that I needed. I am now seriously considering my option to stay open.
By the way, I advised the client to book it with Cruise club. Even if it was the most loyal client which she was not, I would have advised them to go for value for money instead of buying from me at astronomical prices. I wonder all the sales people working in the cruise industry put themselves in the consumer's shoes like I do. I doubt it.
Moan over but raises serious concerns.