Travelocity/Princess Single Penalty

"Odysseus" wrote

Here is the bottom line for the cruise line bean counters. When I travel
solo the shipboard account for one person is more than the account for two
people when I travel with somebody.

While that may be true for you, it is not true for single passengers in
general. Marketing plans are not aimed at individuals but at large groups
of statistically significant people.

The cruise lines have computer yield management programs that will tell them
exactly how people spend their money including who, when, where and how
much. If selling to single passengers was more profitable "overall" then
selling doubles, all cruise lines would be marketing to singles instead of
actively discouraging them from booking.

It is business by the numbers and the cruise lines have all the data they
need to maximize gross revenue and profit.

The same type of program tells them how many people will order prime rib on
Monday night and how many orders of lobster they will have to prepare on
Thursday, thus cutting waste by preparing too much or having unhappy
customers by preparing too little.

When dealing with large numbers, statistically the overall results are very
accurate. They may not predict what one individual may do, but they will
predict what 100,000 people will do with a high degree of accuracy.

So ask yourself this: If selling to singles is as profitable or more
profitable than selling to doubles, why aren't the cruise lines marketing
heavily to singles? Are all the execs from all the cruise lines idiots?
Are they all making the same mistake?


--
George Leppla http://www.countryside-travel.com

Cruise Specials BLOG http://www.countryside-travel.com/3834677_6105.htm
May 20, 2006, Caribbean Princess - http://cruisemaster.com/caribprin.htm
October 29, 2006 - SLEAZY 4! http://cruisemaster.com/sleazy4.htm