Cunard winning with tradition

“We’re never going to be a Royal Caribbean,” Cunard’s marketing director Angus Struthers told a group of trade media recently.

Visiting Sydney to kick off its 175th anniversary celebrations, Struthers explained that while the cruise line has been “exceeding expectations”, it has a certain audience that it caters for.

“If you have a family with young children that are looking for climbing walls and looking for Flow-riders, Cunard’s not the right cruise line for them,” Struthers said. “And our job is to make sure we attract the right people onto the right ships.”

But it’s this specific branding Cunard offers that has made them so popular in their chosen market.

Struthers described the “Aussie Cunard-er” as being between late 50s and early 60s, and who “like the sense of occasion and enjoy the formalites.”

“What the scale of the Cunard ships and the luxury end tend to offer that other cruise companies don’t tend to on the smaller, more boutique size is the variety of things to do,” Struthers added.

“If you want to learn how to fence in the morning, followed by a watercolour class, followed by a listening to Buzz Aldrin, followed by a shore excursion, followed by going to the only planetarium at sea when Queen Mary was launched, the variety is unparalleled for that end of the market.”

“Cunard will always be the more traditional, more formal end of the cruise spectrum, but it has an enduring appeal. And we should celebrate that.”

And the Aussies are following in the Cunard footsteps with bucketloads of enthusiasm, in the last year leap frogging over Germany to become the third largest market for the cruise line.

Sitting just behind the UK and USA, Struthers said “Australians are coming in leaps and bounds towards Cunard.”

For Cunard, almost moreso than for other cruise lines, the onboard experience is paramount, with the ships and activities the centre of attention.

“The ship is the star,” Struthers said. “It’s as much about the Cunard experience as it is about the destination.”

The cruise line’s Insights Program is also “hugely important” to selling voyages, which Struthers says basically reflects the Cunard experience on the whole.

“Show me another program with that kind of range,” he said, citing the customer feedback as continually positive and reinforcing the way they operate.

And while there is a strong growth with the current fleet, Struthers said that there were no new ships on the horizon.

“I mean, never say never, but there are no immediate plans to expand.”

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