| ACA update 29 Mar 18: Crowning glory for cruising

WITH Jill Abel, CEO, Australian Cruise Association – ACA applauds the announcement by Princess Cruises this week (CW 27 Mar) that it is embarking on its largest ANZ deployment in 2019/2020.
Princess has been one of Australia’s favourite cruise lines dating back many years and has undoubtedly been one of the drivers of growth for the industry here.
It has also helped us to grow our international passenger arrivals. Having brought over 30,000 cruise guests to our market last season alone, we are confident this new deployment will continue to grow the inbound market.
But I believe the most exciting take-outs for our members are Princess’ plans for dispersal and destination experiences.
With five ships sailing from six homeports, Princess will include both capital cities and regional destinations such as Port Lincoln, Albany, Phillip Island and Port Arthur on its itineraries. We will also see renewed support for WA with Princess ships spending 141 days in Fremantle.
In developing these extensive itineraries, Princess has worked closely with ACA. Two years ago, we jointly developed a series of welcome videos introducing passengers to our destinations. These were supported by an onboard speaker series & exclusive experiences in port developed in conjunction with our STO, RTO and groundhandler members.
We have also conducted ongoing training in their North American offices for their marketing, sales and res teams.
ACA is excited to continue to work closely with Princess to support its commitment to our industry in Australia and we look forward to an outstanding 2019/20 season.