On The Deck: Alex White

If you’ve been keeping up with the news you cannot have failed to notice that things have been moving quickly at Princess Cruises. The company’s newest ship, the Royal Princess, recently revealed Kate Middleton as its godmother, attracting a huge amount of publicity for not just the line but also the industry in general. Away from the spotlight the company has split its sales team from Complete Cruise solutions and raised commissions to 10%. Both brave moves all things considering. The new sales team will be headed by Alex White – who undoubtedly has one of the most interesting jobs in the industry today. We caught up with him to find out more.

Can you explain the decision behind having Princess’ sales team split from CCS?

Over the last two years the policies we’ve had in place at Princess Cruises have changed quite dramatically compared to that of P&O Cruises and Cunard. Historically, when we had one sales team in place, there were a lot of synergies between how the three brands were operating so it made sense having one account manager. The change in policy has been the key driver for having two sales teams.

What are you hoping to do within the role in terms of trade relations? 

Another opportunity that the split brings is for us to broaden our distribution for Princess. So as part of having one sales we can look at the partners we’re working with and look for new partners. So a key driver for us will be to find those new partners – there’s obviously a lot of excitement in the market this year – and allow us to work closely with them. One key point to make on the trade side is that while we’re a new team, we’ll still be working very closely with the sales teams of both Cunard and P&O. That will ensure a consistency of approach.

What will you be doing over the next few months?

The main thing we’ll be doing is getting out there and meeting our partners. Our field sales team, which will headed by Shane Riley who is originally from CCS, will be out and meeting front-line staff. It’s a fact finding mission and we’re trying to find out how agents would like us to work with them. Our strategy will develop as we listen to that feedback. There are some very exciting events and 13 ship visits so some great opportunities to meet the team. Then for Royal Princess we’ll be hosting 2,000 travel agents for the inaugural, which will be a fantastic event.

What challenges do you face by starting this new team? 

We’ve had fantastic support from the trade for many years and it’s continued. The challenge we’ve had in moving to a new team really is the transition itself. CCS has worked with those partners for many years now and the account management, planning and strategy as we moved over has gone very smoothly. I look forward to building on the fantastic support that CCS has given them.

Do you think it’s fair to say that the decision to raise commission levels to 10% has distanced you from Cunard and P&O in the eyes of agents? Why was this decision made? 

The most important point to make is that we already had differentiated commercial offerings for P&O and Cunard, versus that of Princess. We obviously had a 5% base of commission but we extras like the Air Kicker that could increase that commission. However we are always listening to our travel partners and we’ve reviewed our commercial terms to ensure they’re as simple for them to understand as possible. By moving to 10% and removing the Air Kicker is a much simpler commercial offering. We’re removing back of house commission payments, allowing them to see the true earning potential. I don’t think it distances ourselves because we were different before and it’s different after.

So the change came as a direct result of feedback? 

Yes, we listened our partners and adjusted our terms taking onboard that feedback. We obviously have our own strategy but the feedback we had was that the complex structure we had needed to be simplified. So because it will be paid as a base commission, it will be paid earlier. It’s been very well received and we look forward to continuing our relationship with them now?

What do you hope to achieve by raising commissions?

I think it will make it simpler to work with us and continue to develop our relationships going forward.

Are you hoping Kate Middleton’s appointment as godmother will raise the profile of Princess outside the industry?

We were very honoured that the Duchess of Cambridge agreed to be the godmother for the Royal Princess. It’s going to be an extremely exciting time for Princess and we’ve had some great coverage in the press when we made the announcement. It will also be great news for the UK cruise industry too. It’s got a lot of coverage in titles that wouldn’t previously have featured the cruise industry

What does the next 12 months hold for Princess Cruises within the UK?

Now that we’ve gone through the transition, this is where the truly exciting time starts. We’ve got a full team in place as of Monday so we’re at 12 as of a couple of days ago. That’s a big team and we went through a thorough training programme with them but they’re now all out on the road. That is key for our next couple of months: our guys going out and listening to travel agents and we’ll build out strategy around that. It’s a very exciting time.