Carnival Ambivalent On YTB's Advice To Bypass Onboard Revenue

YTB is advising their clients to eschew purchasing excursion on board Carnival ships. In a recent discovery, on the site, Be-An-Online-Travel-Agent.com, the following excerpt was discovered under the Carnival Cruise Lines tab:

• A little tip about booking your excursions, If you're thinking of booking a tour. Wait, get off the ship, go to a safe area right by where the ship is docked and find a nice tour guide that will show you around. This will save you alot of money and most of the time you'll get more for your money, they'll spend more time showing you around and you wont be on a bus with a hundred other people.
• They say it and they are "The World's Most Popular Cruise Vacation." They sail to some of the world's most exciting destinations. Carnival is the largest cruise line in the world because of the quality and affordability.
• They have too many cruises to list from Alaskan cruises to cruises to the bahamas and world cruises. At different times of the year they even have cruises as low as $ 199.00 per person.
  

Attempting to get Carnival's opinion on this, I contacted Lynn Torrent, the Senior Vice President of Sales. I asked if this practice was condoned or encouraged by Carnival. I also wanted to learn more about the Carnival World Cruise--apparently I missed a memo somewhere along the line.

In an email response, Lynn simply stated:

We encourage our travel agent partners and guests to book their shore excursions thru Carnival, in order to provide the guest with the best and most coordinated experience.

We do not offer World Cruises (but several of our sister companies do!).

In a follow up, I asked if Carnival specifically approved of this practice and suggested that it seemed very close to "12 Tips For Smuggling Booze On-board" and "How To Stiff Your Cabin Steward In Three Easy Steps".Kirk Neal, Regional Vice President responded:

I would agree with Lynn that our preference would be for guests to book their excursions through us as we work with established excursion operators that we know will be well coordinated and organized in cooperation with our cruises. That being said, you certainly bring up a good point which we will address. You are very good at your craft, as I got a good chuckle with your analogy.

As I have stated before, there is a hidden cost to dealing with MLM and here is a clear cut example. It is a known fact that on-board revenue is critical to the bottom line of a cruise ship's profitability. Here is an "agent" of the cruise line publicly encouraging people to book away from Carnival. No one has been able to provide any substantial numbers as tot he level of on-board spending from MLM clients versus traditional agency clients, but I think I know the answer and it is pretty much proven with these actions.

Now the question has been asked and Carnival says they will address it. Hey Carnival...we're waiting! Maybe this type of situation is what YTB was considering on Page 11 of their dismal 10-K filing when they stated:

Since we cannot exert the same level of influence or control over our Reps and RTAs as we could were they our own employees, our Reps and RTAs could fail to comply with our Rep and RTA Policies and Procedures and Terms and Conditions, which could result in claims against us that could harm our financial condition and operating results.