NB: This is a guest article by Mark Gristock, commercial director at Psycle Interactive.
Every time there’s a major leap forward in communications, the travel industry has been there to embrace it.
But while the buying and marketing process has completely changed, there are a number of opportunities in brand enhancement and customer experience that have been identified but not exploited.
And, frankly, until there are major changes in mobile billing, there is little point in implementing them.
Although the European Commission, for example, has pledged to lower data roaming costs to a more reasonable level by July 2014, anyone downloading content or accessing social networks while abroad will have had to do a great deal of research and planning in order to avoid a disturbingly large bill upon their return.
Anyone on a cruise is facing an even tougher set of circumstances.
Passengers using a ship’s cellular antennae are likely to be spending more than £10 a megabyte.
I’ve been working with a major cruise brand for the last six months; first developing the social media platform before moving on to identifying new ways to differentiate the experience of passengers, finding new forms of on-board entertainment and ways to enhance off-board excursions.
Some of the ideas we’ve come up with have been extremely promising, offering potentially massive returns on quite limited investments in design and development.
While you might expect that some of the more outlandish concepts – augmented reality, 3D sound technologies, themed interactive guides and virtual entertainment - to be the stuff of science fiction, surely making social media a fundamental part of the cruise experience is essential to brand differentiation.
But while existing social media platforms are already been used to successfully generate new enquiries and significant levels of sales, it’s proving impossible to integrate them in a way that will provide significant benefits to passengers.
We had hoped to use social communities to drive onboard activity; for example, helping people find other passengers they’d like to be with, try new things and improve the safety, security and popularity of children’s clubs – but even the most basic options have cost implications for those using them.
Without a significant reduction in roaming charges, each innovation has serious cost implications for cruise companies. Even the most optimistic business would have to think long and hard about the unproven revenue models before making the significant investment required to create an on-board wifi infrastructure.
But until we make that investment, mobile apps and related technologies will not become a central part of the onboard experience and we will be unable to exploit the opportunities mobile devices offer us.
As a result, cruise companies will continue to focus on the booking experience and promote apps that are nothing more than clumsy and ineffective sales tools.
NB: This is a guest article by Mark Gristock, commercial director at Psycle Interactive.