On the 21st May Liverpool Cruise Terminal will be finished, this temporary building, anticipated to be around every summer for 3 years while plans are drawn up for a permanent replacement. On May 29th Ocean Countess, the small cruise ship which has been operating out of Liverpool’s trouble Langton dock terminal will operate the first cruise starting from the Pier Head in 40 years. More…
Well this is it, the facts have been laid out, Cunard is abandoning the coastal village of Southampton and graciously returning to their natural home of Liverpool. They have also announced a huge fleet development which will grow the Cunard fleet into 16 ships by the end of the week, utilising empty building slots at Fincanteri and STX. The first four huge ships will be named Caronia, Carmania, Carpathia and Saxonia. Playing on the traditional British values of the Cunard brand.
There has been debate that people from the North, Birmingham and up wouldn’t like to go down South for a Cruise, namely out of Southampton. This has been one of the points for Liverpool’s cruise ambitions. I disagree, just like the way Manchester serves the international market in the North, an Northern cruise port could do the same.
Realistically Liverpool suffers from being on the wrong side of the country, however it is only a few hours more sailing time from Portugal and the Canaries as Southampton, and I believe (somewhere from memory) that Liverpool is 6 hours less sailing time to New York than Southampton. To the North Liverpool could serve Iceland, Ireland and Greenland, as well as the historic link with Canada.
While Fred Olsen has left Liverpool due to the ongoing problems with the cruise terminal, it is clear that the ships were sailing full and Fred Olsen were happy with the performance. Liverpool’s very own Ocean Countess, which has been undertaking a series of cruises operating out of the Langton Dock facility will be returning next year for more cruises. This small ship operates a successful cruise operation from the port.
I know that people will travel down to Southampton to embark on a cruise, however I think that further growth can be achieved by offering cruises from across the country, as more people will be introduced to cruising in the North, a relatively untapped market. The physical presence of cruise ships in the Tyne, Clyde and Mersey can encourage people to go on cruises. Realistically I think Liverpool can achieve around 15 cruises operating out of the port if approval is granted.
I have done the trip to Southampton (three times) by Train, It is a long journey, and expensive, the most recent occurrence being that I travelled at the undesired time, arriving at Southampton at 23.45 and coming home stopping at Manchester and getting a coach as trains to Liverpool had finished, yet the trains still cost me £80 return.
Liverpool has however commented that the view is great and our world heritage waterfront is much better than Southampton’s, That’s true, Southampton has a glamorous IKEA but it is also an amazingly efficient cruise port, with numerous cruise facilities. It would be stupid to knock Southampton’s cruise industry when it has been amazingly successful. However I genuinely feel Liverpool can offer a better cruise experience it just needs the time and Investment to make these cruise facilities. Liverpool could be like Avis ‘We try harder’, a reference to Avis being smaller than Hertz, but trying harder!
In America many cruise line operate out of numerous cities across the country, to appeal to the local markets, I believe the same will happen in the UK, and Southampton will lose market share but still grow, as other UK ports grow their operations. I believe Newcastle is likely to be the main concern, not Liverpool, as Newcastle is on the right side of the Country to cruise the Fjords and Continent.
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Thanks,
Liam
Liam@Crociere.co.uk
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Liverpool will see one of its best years of cruise ship visits next year, and we have complied the list of cruise ships visiting in 2012. Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth will return and P&O will have Arcadia and Adonia calling.
Feel free to right click and save it for your reference.
Sorry about the lack of blogs but I decided to take a break for a few days, its my summer holiday! We will be building a website for cruise visitors, in Southampton they have the Cruise Southampton organisations which uses a website and twitter to assist cruise passengers, we will be planning something similar. If you have any suggestions get in contact!
Thanks,
Liam
Liam@crociere.co.uk
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On 14th August 2010 I hosted my first business endeavour, LiverBoat. It is probably my greatest achievement so far but it is also my biggest failure. I didn’t really want this blog to be about me, and what I’ve done, but I think you will find this story interesting.
In February 2010 I spoke with some friends and decided to charter a Mersey ferry, I spoke with Merseytravel, the owner of the ferries, and arranged a visit to familiarise ourself with the size of the ferry and how the night would work. These ferries aren’t small ferries they carry 370 passengers and have two onboard bars. The Mersey Ferries are made up of the Royal Iris of the Mersey, Snowdrop and the Royal Daffodil. My ferry was the Royal Daffodil.
In case you don’t know I’m twenty, It was quite funny to watch the face of the Merseytravel staff member look at us when she seen how old we were, it was her ’You’re about four years old, you cannot afford to hire this ferry, what do you think you’re doing’ face.
However she was really helpful and helped us make decisions about the ship layout and what to expect on the night. She also put me in contact with companies who could provide the electrical & DJ equipment.
Ticket sales were restricted to being sold after 1st April, the hope being that we could build momentum and ticket sales would be quite fast, however the 1st April came and went and ticket sale were slow, this was a significant problem as future promotion was to be funded by early ticket sales. It was expected that friends and family close to those involved would be quick to buy tickets, in fact the opposite was true. This was by far the biggest hole in the business plan.
In an attempt to ramp up ticket sales, thinking once we reached a certain amount all the tickets would quickly sell, we used special offers and promotions, mainly on Facebook.
This proved to be a silly mistake, we ended up basically under cutting ourselves to people who were already going to buy tickets. At the start tickets were only available from the organisers. So we branched out and made them available from two shops in town and from the website www.liverboat.co.uk.
We did however sign some of Liverpool best DJ’s, one from Liverpool’s top radio station. We expected these to be major pulls, but we just didn’t have the promotion tools to push it to a market larger than our friends. We also pushed the tickets basically from the signing of the charter agreement, this actually just made people hate us, six months of pushing ticket sales for one night. That was a bad marketing strategy.
As an extra pull, we worked with a local nightclub to host an official after party, and a bar in the ferry terminal to host a pre-boarding drinks. These were at no cost to us, but created extra value for our customers and where significant promotion tools.
On the night I was amusingly unable to get onboard my own ship as we couldn’t get into the ferry terminal, having finally got on by waving our vessel charter agreement at people we found the ferry all set up. We however didn’t have enough passengers to fill the ship, by more than half. Ticket sales had been worse than my own worse case scenario. So we closed the top deck, which condensed people into a smaller space, creating the appearance of a busier ferry. The night wasn’t actually so bad, it had a great atmosphere and people seemed to enjoy themselves.
I learnt a lot from my adventure, It was however a financial disaster. Actually It was awful, the loses from the event was more than enough to pay for a cruise for a family of four in the Caribbean (from the UK), Something which still worries me now! But would I do it again, If I could yes, I would, I still feel I have unfinished business with the ferry. It was sad as it was very publicly not the great success I hoped for.
I compare it to (on a significantly smaller scale) the beaching of the Mardi Gras of Carnival Cruise Lines first voyage. Known as the Mardi Gras on the Rocks moment, Since then Carnival has become the most successful passenger shipping business in history, and has achieved what JP Morgan failed. They have taken over Cunard Line, from whose former Head Office my ferry set off from. So maybe I can do something similar too.
The spare web space was used to create this website, so in fact this is a sister project to LiverBoat. I hope you enjoyed that, I was wary about typing this, actually I originally typed this on the 14th August 2011, the year anniversary but wasn’t sure to post.
Thanks,
Liam
Liam@crociere.co.uk
If you are unfamiliar with the ‘Cruise War’ check our previous article first – Fred Olsen Quits Liverpool (Opens in a new window)
or Check Captain Greybeards blog for a quick Summary
Southampton has paused the building of Cruise Terminal 5 for at least a year, as it waits for the outcome of Liverpool’s Cruise Terminal bid. This can only be seen as an attempt to highlight the belief that state aid to Liverpool distorts competition and ruins free-enterprise. This is based on the currently untested assumption that Liverpool’s state aid could be illegal. In reality this makes no business sense other than to ’cause a scene’. Why Southampton would cut planned capacity increase in a growing industry is beyond me, they are in fact then sacrificing market share, or there was no longer an economic case for T5?
I am trying to write a balance argument, but I am from Liverpool, and want to see cruise ships in Liverpool more and more, but I love business and am passionate about free enterprise.
The flaws I see with Southampton’s argument;
- People don’t want to have to go down to Southampton for a cruise, it takes hours on the train, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and many others are closer to Liverpool, so choice should be provided.
- Liverpool has received backing from the Government because it needed it, like many other industries, car manufacturing and technology are perfect examples, grants are given to create economic growth.
- The increased awareness of cruising as people see these huge ships in Liverpool would encourage more people to cruise, inevitably sailing out of Southampton as the UK’s leading cruise port.
The flaws I see with Liverpool’s argument;
- As far as we know no cruise line has committed to using the facility, is it going to make economic sense?
- Peel Ports is a commercial business and a government grant is against the concept of free enterprise. A concept I believe very strongly in.
- The cost of building terminal’s and facilities in Liverpool is higher, due to the tidal patterns in Liverpool, The cost of the current floating landing stage is comparable to that of a full terminal in Southampton.
Since it was the late 60′s when Liverpool’s passenger shipping industry declined, Businesses in Southampton would benefit from opening in Liverpool to service the cruise industry, they already have the skill, knowledge and business relations that no local competitors can provide.
With one terminal used for both visiting cruise ships and the proposed turnaround service Liverpool could only really achieve 20/30 cruise turnarounds, and that’s with Cruise Line backing, which is never guaranteed.
The local newspapers, The Daily Echo (Southampton) and The Liverpool Echo & Daily Post have been blowing the news story out of proportion. One of The Daily Echo’s most recent news stories being the shock of Liverpool planning turnaround facilities if the turnaround ban was lifted…WHAT DID THEY EXPECT? If the ban is lifted surely it would make sense to build the suitable facilities. The shoddy journalism is widespread across the three papers.
If you are on twitter keep up-to-date with our #cruisewars updates! Let me know what you think? Is Liverpool flouting state-aid laws? Twitter, Facebook, Comment & Email
Thanks,
Liam
Liam@crociere.co.uk
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Well its obvious, isn’t it? No Airplane, no flights, no airports. Now we are fans of avoiding the Airport, The queues, the shops, the gates, the lighting, na… We would rather not go to the Airport.
This appears however to be the view of an increasing amount of cruisers, while this has been popular in the States for some time, the European market has been slow to follow, however in the past few years ‘ex-UK’ or ‘No-Fly Cruising’ has taken off, with 40 ships operating from the UK on a total of 506 cruises during 2011. It is also our understanding that 40% of UK cruise passengers sail on a no-fly cruise.
This rapid growth in cruising from the UK has meant that UK ports have been working hard to develop facilities for the ships, with Southampton adding to its five cruise terminals, and Portsmouth opening a new one, as well as ongoing problems regarding Liverpool’s Cruise terminal (check our previous article).
Southampton leads the way with 65% of all cruise departures from the UK, Royal Caribbean, P&O, MSC and Cunard all depart from here. The UK is perfectly positioned to operate cruises to Northern Europe, in the Norwegian Fjords, and to the Med, Across the Atlantic, or round the British Isles. We recently visited the MSC Opera which is currently operating out of Southampton (Check out our Ship Visit Article). RCI’s huge Independence of the Sea’s has also been operating out of Southampton.
However the only drawback from an Ex-UK cruise is that it can take a long time (2/3 Days) for a Cruise ship to arrive in warmer climates, which for those who cruise to the sun, and be a large portion of their holiday. We think the strength of these no-fly cruises will benefit those who don’t like flying, we recently recommended this to a friend who hates flying. Also For Northern European Cruises to Amsterdam, Denmark and the Baltic, what better place to start your cruise.
With the rapid increase in fuel prices expected to continue, airfares are only expected to keep rising too, So we expect to see the growth of No-Fly Cruising to continue. This is also the belief of the Cruise Lines, who have home-ported more vessels in the UK than ever before.
If you are considering a No-Fly Cruise, there is a free book which may interest you available from www.noflycruising.com, this is free and we have our own copy, very useful when making this article and suggesting possible cruises to people.
Let us know what you think! Comment, Facebook, Twitter and Email
Thanks,
Liam
Liam@Crociere.co.uk
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Related Articles
- Liverpool Cruise Terminal Woes
- MSC Opera Ship Visit in Southampton
Links
- www.noflycruising.com
- www.msccruises.co.uk
