STARTUP STAGE: CruiseDirector creates new online platform for booking no-fee luxury cruises

CruiseDirector

CruiseDirector is an online platform for travelers to book luxury ocean, river, yacht and expedition cruises with no booking fees and a best price guarantee. 

The site includes videos, image galleries, maps, weather feeds, reviews and even inspection scores from the Centers for Disease Control to help users find cruises that meet their needs.

 

Describe both the business and technology aspects of your startup.

CruiseDirector has launched an elegant and responsive website with a powerful filtered search and enriching content that will enable consumers to book their cruise online, 24/7, in six steps and in less than five minutes. Consumers can also chat or call one of our certified luxury travel experts to book.

What inspired you to create this company?

We noticed there was growth in the luxury, expedition and river cruise markets, while, at the same time, there was a lack of viable online options for inspiring, researching and booking luxury cruises.

Give us your SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis of the company.

• Strengths: We’re a passionate and experienced team with a deep understanding of the cruise industry. CruiseDirector.com has a strong URL, an intuitive user interface and responsive design, inspiring video, image gallery and editorial content. We also boast a powerful “Google‐like” search, filters and a capable service team. We have already won the 2019 Travel Weekly Magellan Award for Overall ‐ Trip Planning. 
• Weaknesses: New/unknown brand. 
• Opportunities: We foresee expanding to include concierge services that offer hotel, ground transportation, flights and excursions; a multilingual site to serve non‐American customers; a paid loyalty club; vacation financing; and social media integration. 
• Threats: Recession, hurricanes, geopolitical unrest.

What are the travel pain points you are trying to alleviate from both the customer and the industry perspective?

There are several. First, there’s a lack of online cruise planning sites with inspiring and honest content on luxury lines, ships, destinations and departure ports. Our site includes video, image galleries, maps, weather feeds, reviews, CDC scores, etc. - essentially everything a consumer needs to know about a cruise, presented beautifully and concisely.

Before CruiseDirector, customers were often persuaded to buy cruises from telemarketers that were a poor fit. Customers wasted precious time and money and missed opportunities for the vacation of a lifetime. Our enriching and honest content and expert staff will make sure the customer is picking the right product based on their wants and needs.

Second, in the online vacation planning space, there’s a lack of passionate, consistent and trained/certified staff to service customers. Many agencies use host agents with inconsistent service levels and training.

Third, there’s little to no consumer confidence in cruise pricing. We offer a best-price guarantee and price assurance should the price drop after the customer has booked a cruise. We also offer a 24/7 concierge service that you can reach out to from anywhere in the world at any time so you are never “on your own."

So you've got the product, now how will you get lots of customers?

We have acquired a list of 500,000 cruisers to email on weekly basis. We’re also experts at search marketing, and we’ll make sure we organically rank for search terms like "world cruises,” "Galapagos cruises,” etc.  We also plan to maximize social and partner marketing opportunities.

Tell us what process you've gone through to establish a genuine need for your company and the size of the addressable market.

We’ve had extensive conversations with luxury cruise industry veterans and have studied industry research on the growing luxury, expedition and river cruise market. Based on our research, we’re confident that there’s a sizable market out there looking for the services our site offers.

How and when will you make money?

Immediately. We earn commissions from the travel suppliers we sell with each booking through CruiseDirector.com. We will also soon introduce a standalone travel club to our customers, at a fee. That will be a second revenue stream.

What are the backgrounds and previous achievements of the founding team, and why do you have what it takes to succeed with this business?

CruiseDirector is composed of an Inc. 5000 award‐winning team with a combined 50 years in cruise travel and internet ventures! We have the expertise and the knowledge to provide our customers an incomparable luxury cruise planning service.

What's been the most difficult part of founding the business so far?

So far, the challenge has been staying focused on the launch without adding additional consumer-facing features too soon. We will be adding some more features in the future, and we’re quite excited about them, but we want to be sure they’re user‐friendly and worthy of our site. We’re careful not to jump the gun.

Generally, travel startups face a fairly tough time making an impact ‐ so why are you going to be one of lucky ones?

We are a very passionate and experienced team with deep understanding of the cruise industry. People make or break a business and I’m proud to say that everyone on our staff - from the customer service representatives to our top executives to our web designers - are first class.