Lisa Lutoff-Perlo and X's new direction

We're loyal X cruisers (1500+ CC points) and were on the "race to Zenith", tying to book as many long night cruises in top level suites. X introduced the Suite Program and we were excited. Then the bottom fell out, and it became clear that Lisa Lutoff-Perlow was moving Celebrity in a new direction: try to attract younger customers to cruising. Hook them in now and they will be with you for life.

Here's the problem: they don't have money (they are in student debt up to their ass) and what they do have they are NOT going to spend it on a cruise.

In the meantime you have alienated your loyal cruisers, who don't care about "Evening Chic" and all the nonsense that comes with it. Celebrity isn't RCCL. If we wanted that we would have stayed with RCCL.

So Lisa. Good luck to you and what you are trying to do. Watch your repeat business tank as Oceania, Seabourn and other lines pick up the loyal guests you ignored by trying to appeal to hipsters.

Hopefully Richard Fain will have the sense to realize how you have destroyed the brand and bring someone in to fix it. Until then, sayonara.

Great post! I agree with most of what you say. However, you can call evening chic by any name you want, but to me, as long as it means the end of formal nights, its a good thing.

Some night clubs in Vegas are clearing a million a night. Now tell me again how they don't have money?

russg, before you go to Oceania or Seabourn: give Azamara a try -- all your CC status will carry over and you can continue the "race to Zenith" [aka Platinum on Azamara] instead of starting over!

 

Here's the problem: they don't have money (they are in student debt up to their ass) and what they do have they are NOT going to spend it on a cruise.

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What makes you think that? Some people in that demographic are debt free and enjoy anything they want

Those younger customers X is trying to attraft are not the ones with tons of student debt. There are a hordes lot of younger people with a lot of disposable income. The challenge is in balancing what the older loyal customer (whose cruising years are numbered) want with what will attract the younger monied cruiser who will become your revenue stream for the next 20+ years. Not an easy task‼️

X isn't going to attract the moneyed millennials until they fix their website, fix their outrageous Internet costs, and get some higher quality entertainment.

(For those still thinking of millennials as snot-nosed brats with student debts, don't forget a lot of them were smart enough to go into STEM and business fields.)

Plenty of people under 40 with some serious coin to drop on discretionary purchases. They think cruises are still for Grandma and Grandpa (rest their souls) and loaded with Patsy Cline and Sinatra tribute shows. The industry has not been successful in shaking off that image, but they are trying hard.

X isn't going to attract the moneyed millennials until they fix their website, fix their outrageous Internet costs, and get some higher quality entertainment.

 

(For those still thinking of millennials as snot-nosed brats with student debts, don't forget a lot of them were smart enough to go into STEM and business fields.)

Aside from the points you mention, I'd suggest another. Ludicrously short breakfast hours. It is the major downer for me as being on holiday I find a 90 minute window for a served breakfast to be a joke. I am aware of the extended buffet breakfast but it doesn't hit the spot for me. We paid for a suite and expect to eat in that venue for breakfast somewhere between 9am and 10am and be served freshly prepared food etc. No chance of that happening.

I don't think this is unique to Celebrity though, but more endemic on cruise lines as a whole. The structured style earns no support from many folk the cruise lines are trying to attract.

I can tell you that in our community - Middle of Silicon Valley. These young debt ridden young folks are quite the opposite. They are buying $1 Million plus homes for all cash with multiple offers at $100's of Thousand over ask. Hmmm...

I wish I was so poor when I was in my early 30's.

I wouldn't blame her for this new strategy, there definitely seems to be merit in it. I don't think Lisa and her team of highly paid strategists and marketing guys would have taken this decision lightly. Customer insights clearly show that once you get hooked onto cruising, you want to cruise again. And the more years you have on your side, the more business you are worth.

Celebrity and Royal Caribbean pride themselves on being able to delight a large percentage of their cruisers. Which means the sooner you reel them in, the more cruises they will take with you. By younger I yet think they're targeting people in their early 30s, Double-income no kids kind of people.

Look at Royal Caribbean, they've sent their 2 newest ships to China! We're ranting as much as we can, threatening not to cruise with the Chinese but they're going where the money is! Celebrity is no different.

I am sure that they're trying to balance their 2 most important demographics. 1 is first time cruisers/ younger cruisers. The 2nd is their loyal, more older cruisers. We 'youngsters' may have more cruises (at higher prices) ahead of us, but I can safely state that we don't spend as much as the older cruisers who definitely have more money in their vacation fund than us. And having a good loyalty program shows that they are interested in keeping back cruisers who've done multiple cruises as well.

Cheers!

Nick

My daughter (34) grew up cruising with us exclusively on Celebrity and Princess. Now that she is married and working on Wall Street she doesn't like cruising because in her words:

- they have little to no decent music entertainment at night and it stops way too early;

- they like to sleep in in the mornings. By the time they head to buffet all the hot food is no longer served

- next is lunch at 3 pm (because late breakfast) and there is nothing but the grille, pizza or pasta open. How many days can you eat the same boring things

- the music by the pool is terrible. We have iPods, iPads and iPhones to listen to our own tunes. So turn off the music so it doesn't compete

- Quiet please, I am trying to nap by the pool. I'm hung over from drinking last night because there was nothing else to do

Ohhhh I could go on...I've heard all these complaints every time we suggest another family trip. But thought Lisa and her team might be interested in this feedback.

My partner and I are in our mid 30's, hope that still counts as young :-)

We took our first cruise with X 4 years ago and love it! We also love most of the recent changes, like the new entertainment. Elyria for example was fantastic!

X is definitely the cruise line of our choice because of their modern but still classy approach. Guess thats called modern luxury:-)

where we see room for improvement:

- last year we booked a suite to try Luminae. Bit too stuffy for us. Back to Aqua :-)

- as others suggested, breakfast end ridiculously early

- an adult only pool (open air) would be nice

I'm now in my mid 30s and we started cruising in our late 20s and LOVE it - especially Celebrity! We have tried NCL, carnival, princess, and rccl, and keep coming back to celebrity. What I am intrigued about the the sustainability of the strategy. My husband and I were hooked as a DINK couple (with no student debt thanks to me choosing an engineering career and a state school). But now we are expecting our first children in four days! Celebrity isn't know as a family friendly line. While we will still sail some on Celebrity I'm sure, when the twins are older kids, the appeal of water slides, etc will draw us to other lines, where we will build status on those. Will the draw of celebrity being our current fave pull us back in 18 years? Or by then will we be so comfortable with a new favorite line that Celebrity won't be able to entice us back? It will be interesting to see!

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It's not just Celebrity there are a few lines who are openly perusing the millennials, our children fall into this group and having 7 between us (second timers) have a good spread of the millennial demographic.

They are all either busy building a family, business or career, or of course any combination of these. Housing here in the UK is expensive so that is their top priority, but they all enjoy their leisure time of course but none of them have cruising as a priority.

Those that do have a good disposal income don't have a great deal of disposable time being busy with earning that money! So there holidays are precious and their priority is for more adventurous pursuits.

We on the other hand have come through all of that and are fortunate to have both money and time to enjoy ourselves, cruising is our preferred holiday and in a normal year take 6-7 cruises (50-60 days total) but we are beginning to think that some lines no longer want to cater for us. Being in our early 60's fit, healthy and enjoy an active life with many cruising years left (we hope) it would be nice to think that cruise lines wanted our custom.

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The ships are full, so...

The Indispensable Man ( or loyal Celebrity cruiser)

(by Saxon White Kessinger)

Sometime when you're feeling important;

Sometime when your ego 's in bloom;

Sometime when you take it for granted,

You're the best qualified in the room:

Sometime when you feel that your going,

Would leave an unfillable hole,

Just follow these simple instructions,

And see how they humble your soul.

Take a bucket and fill it with water,

Put your hand in it up to the wrist,

Pull it out and the hole that's remaining,

Is a measure of how much you'll be missed.

You can splash all you wish when you enter,

You may stir up the water galore,

But stop, and you'll find that in no time,

It looks quite the same as before.

The moral of this quaint example,

Is to do just the best that you can,

Be proud of yourself but remember,

There's no indispensable man. (loyal Celebrity cruiser)

Get over it and enjoy cruising while you can.

Think a case can be made that this did not start with the current leadership.

What makes you think that? Some people in that demographic are debt free and enjoy anything they want

true....and as long as Celebrity can find over 800,000 of them to fill the cabins of their ships each year, they will do well. Of course all of those aren't the high priced suites....but on the less expensive cabins, they still have to compete with many other cruise lines. It's never good to alienate your past customers...and alas, Lisa and her predecessor have done just that and some, if not many are now at least looking at other lines rather than just booking Celebrity.....that includes us.

It's not just the big things....actually the change that had us start looking elsewhere was the water in aqua.....if Celebrity can be that cheap....what's next.

I would bet the ranch that Celebrity has done extensive research on demographics and spending.

Us older demographic group is NOT growing, so any company has to have an eye to the next group(s) coming up.

I personally do not sail as often anymore. We now have grandkids with a 3rd on the way and spend lots of time with them. We also now spend time traveling on land based trips, mostly long weekends with family/friends/ourselves. We love the aspect of deciding to head out this coming week-end and go to regional locations for great short trips.

Briefly, those of you who feel alienated, what are the SPECIFIC changes you think X is making to try to lure millennials? Because to restate my earlier point, if they're trying they're doing it wrong. Just to toss out a random example, I'm smack in the middle of Gex X, and I saw Rock City in December. The most recent songs in that show were about 20 years old, and most were much older. Meaning, they there was playing songs from my childhood and before I was born, and I'm still older than this target demo you think they're going after.

The live duo in the lobby was doing Buddy Holly and such. And this was on a five day Carribean.

The website and assorted tech, as we know, is a joke.

Specifics, please.

(I'm not a cruise industry expert by any means, but the line I can see actually scooping up the millennials in a few years is Virgin.)

We're loyal X cruisers (1500+ CC points) and were on the "race to Zenith", tying to book as many long night cruises in top level suites. X introduced the Suite Program and we were excited. Then the bottom fell out, and it became clear that Lisa Lutoff-Perlow was moving Celebrity in a new direction: try to attract younger customers to cruising. Hook them in now and they will be with you for life.

 

Here's the problem: they don't have money (they are in student debt up to their ass) and what they do have they are NOT going to spend it on a cruise.

 

In the meantime you have alienated your loyal cruisers, who don't care about "Evening Chic" and all the nonsense that comes with it. Celebrity isn't RCCL. If we wanted that we would have stayed with RCCL.

 

So Lisa. Good luck to you and what you are trying to do. Watch your repeat business tank as Oceania, Seabourn and other lines pick up the loyal guests you ignored by trying to appeal to hipsters.

 

Hopefully Richard Fain will have the sense to realize how you have destroyed the brand and bring someone in to fix it. Until then, sayonara.

I agree with you to a point. My kids have experienced cruising at a young age on Princess. My son is turning 21 this year, has student loans up the wah-zoo but he still saves for spring break. Granted he is still in school so he isn't paying on these loans and he doesn't have living expenses. He is planing a cruise for next year. Celebrity and Princess aren't even on his list of choice. He is looking at NCL, Royal Caribbean and Carnival as he should be. It's going to take a lot more than Evening Chic which to get the next generation to even consider Celebrity. At this point they don't care about fine dining, refined decor or theater entertainment. Evening Chic is one of changes that my wife 47 and myself 55 were happy about. By the way my wife and I have a mortgage, 2 car payments, property taxes, insurance payments utilities each month and we still have to eat . We are no where near being debt free. There are probably at least one or two other Celebrity passengers in the same financial situation.

Just because you don't like X targeting a younger audience doesn't make it a bad strategy. Without proper market research, I wouldn't be able to comment whether or not it's a good or a bad approach. I would like to think that the Exec and Board of X and RCI do their research before they set their long term objectives.

And good riddance to formal nights. Just my opinion.

I am 68 and financially comfortable. However, until I retired 5 years ago, I didn't have the time to take long vacations.

DW and I take two overseas trips a year, usually 3-4 weeks each. When I was working, we rarely traveled overseas. We both worked overseas and traveled a lot some years ago, but that was different.

My Son and Daughter both work, they are in their 40s. They rarely take vacations longer than 10 days due to work.

We like to travel with them, but one week cruises just don't cut it, with the cost of flying to Europe, Asia or South America.

On 14 day cruises (most of what we do) the number of young people on the ship are fairly small. I suppose the 7 day cruises have more young people.

Still, I think seniors are the majority of X cruisers. If that is not true, explain it to me.

I love these kinds of threads. Very entertaining but also informative. my wife and I are DINKS and still X newbies but We love the cruiseline. ITicks most of the boxes on my cruise wish list. With a new class of ship on the horizon this is an especially exciting time.

russg, before you go to Oceania or Seabourn: give Azamara a try -- all your CC status will carry over and you can continue the "race to Zenith" [aka Platinum on Azamara] instead of starting over!

Toying with first Azamara cruise. With most things provided, I'm loss to understand what being a Elite Plus on X would benefit us on Azamara. Can you explain.