Home » News » “Sydney could be one of the biggest cruising hubs in the world”: Ecruising founder

18 July, 2018

“Sydney could be one of the biggest cruising hubs in the world”: Ecruising founder

Sydney, Australia - March 18, 2014: The Rhapsody of the Seas cruise ship, operated by Royal Caribbean International, reverses past the Sydney Opera House as it prepares to depart on a trip at sunset.

Hate to state the obvious but Aussie travellers are LOVING cruise at the moment.

With one in 19 Aussies choosing cruise, Australia has the highest market penetration in the world.

If CLIA’s most recent Australian Crusie Industry Source Market Report is anything to go by, agents would be mad not to get on board with this worry-free, all-in-one holiday.

To find out more about the best way to sell cruise based holidays, and see what’s in store for the industry, we had a chat with Brett Dudley, the founder and chairman of Ecruising.

Having just celebrated their 18th year in business, the cruise based holiday booking site is a one-stop-shop for people looking for a cruise holiday.

“We specialise in packages, flights, accommodation, transfers and of course, a cruise,” Dudley said.

“We do everything from start to finish.”

Dudley is also the founder and chairman of Latitude 33, which he started to meet the demand for high end, all-inclusive experiences in exotic places.

BrettDudley

“Of course we include cruises in some of our tours, for instance, we’ve chartered True North for an exclusive 13 night holiday to one of the most remote places in the world. The tour is in November next year, it’s 50 per cent sold out but a great opportunity for agents to make easy money,” he said.

According to Dudley, it’s crucial that agents educate themselves at risk of selling the wrong cruise to the wrong person.

“I recently met a couple that lived on the harbour and always wanted to go on one of the ships they saw coming into the harbour,” he said.

“Their agent booked them on what they thought was the right ship, the customers boarded the ship, after 2 hours they walked off, disembarked and went home, they lost over $8,000.00 in the process and said they’d never go on another cruise!

“Hopefully I’ve convinced them otherwise but agents need to qualify their clients, ask them if they fly first, business or economy, you can then put them on the right ship otherwise they’ll not enjoy their experience.”

He told us that it boils down to familiarisation.

“Do the training, familiarise yourself with the different cruise lines and ships, it’s an easy sell, unpack once, sit back and relax, it’s an all-inclusive holiday. Agents can always call us, we sell to agents and our experienced team will ensure their clients are booked on the right ship.”

When asked what kind of trends agents should be looking out for, Dudley said expedition cruising is taking off in a big way.

“Cruise lines are building new ships to meet the demand. Deep down, we are all adventurers and want to explore remote parts of the world in luxury

“Silversea just celebrated their 10^th year in expedition cruising and boast being the most luxurious expedition cruise line. I attended Silversea’s 10^th anniversary which was held on the revitalised Silver Cloud.

“It has all the things you need for an expedition, ice class hull, zodiacs, mud room, an experienced team of expedition leaders and of course, the luxury to come back to after your adventure.”

Despite its tremendous growth, the Australian cruise industry is facing some major challenges right now. That’s right, we’re talking about the elephant in the room: berthing problems.

“Sydney could be one of the biggest cruising hubs in the world if they could only come to an agreement with the Navy and Garden Island, there’s plenty of room there for the Navy and the industry,” Dudley told us.

Do you have something to say about this? Get in touch with Travel Weekly Editor Ali Coulton at alexandra@travelweekly.com.au

Advertise with us

“Gold Coast also had a great opportunity to provide 10,000 jobs and a world-class terminal facility but the current government were too scared to make the commitment, the decision has been postponed for another year.”That statement is absolutely false. The local council who are now the sole proponents of this absurd proposal have been forced to release their previously secret and heavily redacted risk assessment report and supply it to the current government. The astronomical cost to build and maintain such a terminal in the Pacific Ocean has sunk the business case for an oceanside terminal from the outset. The technical and environmental constraints are incredibly significant and any port in the open Pacific Ocean - like that proposed by the bumbling local mayor - would be so unreliable and exposed to the elements as to prevent any kind of scheduling and ship-safety confidence to any major cruise line company, hence why both Carnival and RCI have abandoned the idea and stated, matter of fact, that they intend to spend not one minute or one cent on the Gold Coast proposal and would only ever 'take a look at it' once built and funded by someone else. There are currently no private investors that have shown any semblance of interest in investing a cent in it either with the mayor now touting that local rate payers could fund it. Conversely they are bipartisan investing over $150 million into the new Brisbane super terminal and home port being constructed near the international airport. What Mr Dudley has written here - purporting as fact - is nothing but hysterical conjecture and has absolutely no factual basis to it. 10,000 jobs from a single cruise ship terminal that can - at best - host maybe two dozen 300m+ LOA ships per year (purely in theory) is not just laughable but totally absurd. Please challenge these fantasy claims and do some research before regurgitating this kind of fake news. We're talking an exposed terminal out in the Pacific Ocean that has absolutely no deep-water harbour, no wind protection and is subject to year-round swell, seas and currents of significant impact. At an estimated build cost of $500,000,000 it would be the biggest white elephant project in the nation's history and the state government knows this all too well.

Frank Simpo

Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au

Latest comments

Frank Simpo says:
July 19, 2018 at 2:12 pm
“Gold Coast also had a great opportunity to provide 10,000 jobs and a world-class terminal facility but the current government were too scared to make the commitment, the decision has been postponed for another year.”
That statement is absolutely false. The local council who are now the sole proponents of this absurd proposal have been forced to release their previously secret and heavily redacted risk assessment report and supply it to the current government. The astronomical cost to build and maintain such a terminal in the Pacific Ocean has sunk the business case for an oceanside terminal from the outset. The technical and environmental constraints are incredibly significant and any port in the open Pacific Ocean – like that proposed by the bumbling local mayor – would be so unreliable and exposed to the elements as to prevent any kind of scheduling and ship-safety confidence to any major cruise line company, hence why both Carnival and RCI have abandoned the idea and stated, matter of fact, that they intend to spend not one minute or one cent on the Gold Coast proposal and would only ever ‘take a look at it’ once built and funded by someone else. There are currently no private investors that have shown any semblance of interest in investing a cent in it either with the mayor now touting that local rate payers could fund it. Conversely they are bipartisan investing over $150 million into the new Brisbane super terminal and home port being constructed near the international airport. What Mr Dudley has written here – purporting as fact – is nothing but hysterical conjecture and has absolutely no factual basis to it. 10,000 jobs from a single cruise ship terminal that can – at best – host maybe two dozen 300m+ LOA ships per year (purely in theory) is not just laughable but totally absurd. Please challenge these fantasy claims and do some research before regurgitating this kind of fake news. We’re talking an exposed terminal out in the Pacific Ocean that has absolutely no deep-water harbour, no wind protection and is subject to year-round swell, seas and currents of significant impact. At an estimated build cost of $500,000,000 it would be the biggest white elephant project in the nation’s history and the state government knows this all too well.
Log in to Reply

Brett Dudley clia cruise ecruising Latitude 33