Courting cruisers, pre and post
U.S. destination marketers are partnering with lines and advisors to entice passengers to spend a little more time (and money) in the places cruise ships call home.
Dana Young, CEO of Visit Florida, heads the tourism marketing arm of a state that is home to three of the 10 busiest cruise ports on the planet, from which more than 20 million passengers embark annually. The world’s No. 1 cruise port, Miami, accounts for more than 7 million passengers alone.
But Young would like to see more of those cruisers stay on dry land. At least for a few days, that is.
A lot of passengers fly in, get on the ship and then leave when they return to port, Young said. But if they stayed just one more day in the state, it would earn “millions and millions and millions of dollars,” she said during a conversation at U.S. Travel’s IPW conference in Los Angeles in May. “We want to keep them here a little bit longer.”
Young is not alone among destination management organizations (DMOs) in the U.S. that are trying to entice cruise passengers to spend time before or after getting off a ship. CLIA statistics from 2023 show that about 66% of cruise travelers globally stayed at least one night before or after their cruise, 17% stayed one night both before and after cruise and 6% stayed three or more nights both before and after a cruise.
Executives at many U.S. homeports see potential to get more cruisers to spend additional time in their destinations, encouraged by a confluence of travel trends: Cruising is surging, travelers are taking longer vacations and consumers are prioritizing experiences.
Success could be lucrative. According to the cruise lines, passengers are spending more than ever. Since restarting after the pandemic pause, the major cruise companies have reported record onboard spend, including more shore excursion uptake. CLIA data shows that cruisers spend at a higher rate than other types of travelers during their port visits: In some destinations, cruiser rate of spend is about 29% higher per hour than that of overnight visitors and 54% more per hour than that of daytrippers.
But there are hurdles. Chief among them is that when people plan and pay for a cruise, the sailing itself often accounts for the entirety of their available vacation time and budget.
Marisel Aleman, vice president of Cruise Elite in Ormond Beach, Fla., said that among her clients flying to a cruise, about 60% generally do some form of stay before or after sailing but that it’s most likely when embarking abroad, especially for a bucket-list trip. For those flying to Florida, she said, two factors determine if they add time in the destination: whether they have been to that city previously and how many vacation days they have available.
“As Americans, we have limited vacation time,” Aleman said. “That is the biggest constraint on adding days. People are taking several vacations throughout the year, and if they only have a week of vacation left, a seven-day cruise plus a night to arrive a day early is all they can do.”
She added that a defining factor is whether the client perceives they will have the opportunity to revisit the destination. When clients cruise from abroad, they’re more likely to want to immerse themselves in the destinations and visit nearby countries. She always recommends to add at least one day prior to the start of the cruise, and ideally two to three nights if it’s a new destination or to get over jet lag.
Her clients follow the general trend of planning longer trips, increasing their spend and prioritizing experiences.
“Post-pandemic, everyone is realizing that time is precious, and we never know what tomorrow will bring,” Aleman said. “Experiences are very important. We all need to travel when we are healthy and able to do so. As we get older, time is very finite, and there is so much of the world to see. When our clients cruise to Galapagos, we add Machu Picchu. This will probably be a one-time adventure.”
Pike Place Market in Seattle. The city’s Perks Pass offers discounts on lodging and attractions for visitors. (Photo by David Newman)
Pike Place Market in Seattle. The city’s Perks Pass offers discounts on lodging and attractions for visitors. (Photo by David Newman)
Where does a cruise start?
Jean-Paul Rodrigue, a professor at the department of maritime business administration at Texas A&M University-Galveston, also said the “time-budget constraint” is the main impediment to adding pre- and post-stays.
“When people are coming for a cruise, the local port is simply some kind of a bonus,” he said. “Those people have a week vacation. And the cruises are designed exactly for one week. They book a cruise, they pay for packages and plans; and when the cruise ends, they go home and their vacation is over. That’s basically the behavior of most Americans: They have a tight vacation schedule, and there is not that much wiggle room.”
With that in mind, Brett Laiken, chief marketing officer of Visit Florida, said the DMO’s goal is to change cruisers’ mindset so that when people arrive in the state, “you start your cruise the second you get here. Let us be your first excursion.”
His choice of words — suggesting people start their cruise in Florida — is intentional. It counters the notion that spending pre- or post-cruise time in a destination is an add-on in terms of time and budget. Laiken wants to inspire cruisers to think of their trip holistically, starting or ending with their time spent in the state.
Visit Lauderdale, New Orleans & Co. and Visit Seattle are some of the destination marketing organizations working to draw more business from cruise passengers sailing from their cities. (Courtesy of Visit Lauderdale • New Orleans & Company • Visit Seattle)
Visit Lauderdale, New Orleans & Co. and Visit Seattle are some of the destination marketing organizations working to draw more business from cruise passengers sailing from their cities. (Courtesy of Visit Lauderdale • New Orleans & Company • Visit Seattle)
Visit Florida launched a campaign last year to try to drive more pre- and post-cruise business by targeting top-selling cruise agents. The program, run by Travel Weekly’s parent company, Northstar Travel Group, included advisor fam trips to port cities showcasing cruise add-ons, social media amplifications, webinars and online training modules in Florida Travel Pro, the DMO’s online agent-training program as well as workshops at Travel Weekly’s CruiseWorld conference.
Travel advisors, Laiken said, have direct contact to cruisers and can help clients see the cruise as part of what he calls a vacation package that includes land.
“They’re going to look at your budget, at what your needs are,” Laiken said of advisors. “And when the agent is booking the trip, they’re not just saying, ‘We’re going to book you on this seven-night cruise, and maybe you should stay here.’ They are saying, ‘From the time you land in Florida, this is what you’re going to do. You may do a pre, then get on your cruise. You may do a post, and so you can relax.’ But we don’t want them to look at it as two separate trips.”
The program has been a success. Laiken said advisors who participated booked more than $14 million in incremental pre- and post-cruise bookings over the previous year.
“The effort helped,” he said, adding that Visit Florida plans to take the program wider, working with more ports, cruise lines and even airlines, which noted the success of the program and wanted to be part of it.
Visit Florida is not the only DMO to discover that the best way to convince cruise passengers to become overnight guests is via their travel advisors.
New Orleans & Co.’s tourism team prioritizes travel advisor relationships to drive more pre- and post-cruise tourism. Among the ways it does that is by offering perks and amenities that advisors alone can give to their clients and by making the booking process as seamless as possible.
“We try to make New Orleans an easy sell for them,” said Rachel Funel, a senior account executive at the DMO.
Advisors visiting New Orleans & Co.’s travel professionals’ website can request “cruise coupons” that give their clients discounts on tours, attractions and restaurants. Only travel advisors can request these links, which they can then share privately with clients.
“They can say, ‘I have a connection with the New Orleans tourism board,’” Funel said. “Their client can’t find it anywhere else. It’s that extra perk that makes that client more loyal to them, and then the travel agent is more loyal to us.”
Advisors also receive the personal touch from account executives like Funel, who they can reach directly for ideas. “Even if a client is here for only four hours, I can customize itineraries,” she said. “Just reach out and say, ‘I need help.’”
New Orleans & Co. has additional offers that both cruisers and advisors can find on its website, such as pre- and post-cruise packages with discounted hotel rates, usually about 30% to 40% off, or perks such as a “stay and park” hotel deal that gives cruisers a week of free parking after just a few nights at the hotel. “Those are very popular” with the drive market, Funel said.
Some destinations work specifically with certain travel agencies to try and drive more pre- and post-cruise stays. Visit Lauderdale has long found that its connection with its Broward County neighbor Cruise Planners helps grow such bookings.
“They are very familiar with the destination, with Visit Lauderdale, and we work really well with them,” Visit Lauderdale CEO Stacy Ritter said about Cruise Planners. “They are putting together packages, and we are ensuring they know all the new things that there are to do in the destination that they can then educate their clients on.
“They work directly with the cruise passengers; we do not,” she added. “It’s a mutually beneficial relationship.”
Cayo Costa in Florida. Visit Florida is working with advisors to increase pre- and post-cruise business. (Photo by Peter W. Cross)
Cayo Costa in Florida. Visit Florida is working with advisors to increase pre- and post-cruise business. (Photo by Peter W. Cross)
Helping out homeports
A criticism of cruise tourism has been that it’s less lucrative for homeport markets because passengers get on the ships and leave without spending much on local hotels and restaurants.
While Seattle’s homeport numbers are far below Florida’s, it still saw 889,000 passengers depart on 291 sailings in 2023; the Port of New Orleans counted just under 1.2 million cruise passengers. Getting even half of those cruisers to add one more day to their stays before or after a sailing could result in significant economic impact, or as Visit Florida’s Young said, “millions and millions and millions of dollars.”
Although Cruise Elite’s Aleman finds that clients are more likely to add time when cruising abroad, she pointed to an exception: Alaska.
That’s something Liz Johnson, senior director of tourism development at Visit Seattle, does not find surprising. People taking an Alaska cruise regard it in the bucket-list category, she said.
“For a Miami cruise, you might have the luxury to add it last minute,” she said. “But people invest in their Alaska cruise. It’s almost two different types of cruiser.”
Seattle this year soft-launched the Perks Pass program of lodging and attractions discounts to entice visitors to branch out more and “spread around the economic benefit within the community.” Visit Seattle is partnering with the cruise lines to promote the pass.
“We had a lot of interest from the cruise lines about getting it included in the [in-cabin] daily newsletter,” she said. “There’s been a lot of positive response so far from the lines. I think that as travel trends go more toward experiencing a community, and just experiences in general, we find that the cruise lines have been really receptive to it because it allows guests to supplement what they’re already going to spend on.”
Seattle is not the only DMO that partners with cruise lines to promote pre- and post-cruise tourism. But Texas A&M’s Rodrigue noted that getting passengers to spend money in port is not a line’s first priority.
“The cruise lines try to keep as much revenue as they can within the ship,” he said. “That’s why the ship has become an amusement park.”
But Laiken said cruise lines see value in working with DMOs like Visit Florida.
“The cruise line has its own goals, and we have our own goals: We candidly don’t want somebody to leave Florida and go to the Bahamas, but we understand that’s what people are looking to do,” he said. “Still, we have 140 million-plus visitors coming to Florida, and we have significant media, and we partner with the cruise lines. We feel that, together, the awareness is enhanced, and we’re just casting a wider net. We are not telling people. ‘Don’t cruise.’ We’re just saying, ‘Start your cruise now.’”
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