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2 | www.travelweekly-asia.com Published by NORTHSTAR TRAVEL MEDIA SINGAPORE PTE LTD SINGAPORE 91 Bencoolen Street, #05-08 Sunshine Plaza, Singapore 189652 • TEL: +65-6801-0450 FAX: +65-6801-0469 BEIJING Room 024, Building 8, Qijiayuan Diplomatic Compound, No.9 Jianguomenwai Street, Chaoyang District 100600, China • TEL: +8610-8532 3611 | FAX: +8610-8532 5293 SHANGHAI Room 2553, The Headquarters Building, No.168 Central XiZhang Road, Shanghai 200001, China • TEL: +8621-5179 8360 | FAX: +8621-5179 8360 Travel Weekly Asia is published on a monthly basis by Northstar Travel Media Singapore Pte Ltd. Located at 91 Bencoolen Street, #05-08 Sunshine Plaza, Singapore 189652. All rights reserved. Volume 8 Issue 11 Please address all subscription mail to the above address, Fax +852 3020 5794, or email travelweeklyasia@asia-ad.net. 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Kemp CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Lisa Cohen PRESIDENT, TRAVEL GROUP Robert G. Sullivan EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, DIGITAL MEDIA Thomas Cintorino EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT/GROUP PUBLISHER David Blansfield SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT/EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Lori Cioffi SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Arnie Weissmann SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, HUMAN RESOURCES Janine L. Bavoso SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT & PRODUCTION Roberta Muller VICE PRESIDENT, INFORMATION PRODUCTS GROUP Sheila Rice VICE PRESIDENT, IT INFRASTRUCTURE AND OPERATIONS Rich Mastropietro VICE PRESIDENT, DATABASE PRODUCTS Elizabeth Koesser TRAVEL WEEKLY EVENTS PRESIDENT, TRAVEL GROUP Robert G. Sullivan SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, EVENTS, TRAVEL GROUP Alicia Evanko-Lewis Arnie Weissmann has been involved in virtually every aspect of travel jour- nalism, publishing and media for the past 25 years. His writing has won more than 40 national awards, he created the industry's first destination information service (Weissmann Reports), authored a best-selling textbook and has served as publisher of critical hotel and destination guides for the travel industry. Why software isn't eating Asian cruise bookings At the 13th edition of Web in Travel (WIT), a tech conference and sister company within Northstar Travel Group, Filip Filipov, vice president of product management for meta- search company Skyscanner, presented his argument for why he thinks Asia is eating the world. The issue is personal for Filipov: Skyscanner, born and raised in Scotland, is now owned by Ctrip, one of China's largest OTAs. Filipov's technology-focused presentation demonstrated how the products of software-driven companies in Asia - especially, though not exclusively in China - are being adopted more quickly and growing faster than those of companies in the West. I had come to a similar conclusion while preparing both a presentation on cruising to entrepreneurs at the conference's "Bootcamp" and to moderate a panel of Asian cruise executives in a general session. I was aware of predictions that Asia is on track to be the world's largest cruise market and that, shortly thereafter, China by itself will be able to claim that title. The growth of cruising in Asia is phenomenal by any standard. CLIA reports departures are up 250% since 2012, with capacity increasing 300% in the same time frame. WIT is a tech conference, and one reason cruising as a topic was making its debut only this year is that consumer-facing cruise booking technology, even in app-happy Asia, is conspicuous by its absence. Why is software not eating Asian cruise bookings? I put the question to Sean Treacy, managing director of the Asia Pacific region at Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (RCL) and a panellist at the WIT conference. "We don't make it easy," he said, TALKING POINT citing the number of cabin types on each ship. While travel agents still book 65% to 70% of cruises in the US, Treacy said, it remains as high as 90% in some Asian countries. Observing that OTAs have been a mixed blessing for hotels, I asked if cruise lines had concluded that they might not want to engage with a channel that can sometimes have a depressive effect on pricing. "We want to be where our customers want us to be," Treacy replied. One other contributing factor to the slow development of consumer- facing cruise booking tech is that software developers carefully calculate the size of an opportunity. Despite rapid growth, the entire cruise industry is peanuts compared with hotels, where booking technology is competitive. The entire cruise inventory worldwide is still considerably less than the number of rooms managed by any one of the top five multinational hotel companies. If that should change, it will likely be due to further growth in Asia. Treacy and Dream Cruises president Thatcher Brown pointed to the potential of Indonesia, which has a population of 255 million but is still in the early stages of cruise development. Also mentioned were the Philippines, with more than 100 million inhabitants, and Vietnam, with 91 million. Many residents of those three countries who cruise currently do so out of Singapore, the regional hub. The nationality that cruises out of Singapore most is Indian. I asked Brown and Treacy why India itself was not being developed as a cruise market. They pointed to a lack of cruise infrastructure, the paucity of ports of call near enough to India's coastline and an unfavourable tax environment.

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