Carnival Cruise Essay

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Introduction The birth of the modern cruise industry can be traced to the 1960s, in the wake of the first flight from New York to Europe in 1958. Amongst the major players in the cruise industry, Carnival Cruise Lines came to carve out a niche market with its “fun ships”. Although the cruise industry segments itself along four main categorical lines: Luxury, Destination, Contemporary, and Premium, each of the cruise lines should consider themselves a competitor in the vacation business, especially considering that only 16% of North American vacationers have ever been on a cruise (Applegate, Kwortnik, & Piccoli, 2006). The battle to convert land vacationers to cruisers, and one time cruisers into repeat customers, is one fought by all of the cruise lines, each in their own way. Carnival’s target market is broad: consumers twenty-five to fifty-four years old who make $40,000 or more per year, placing them in a convenient overlap between contemporary and premium segments. However, the average age of Carnival’s customer is forty-six, only a few years younger than the industry average. Carnival’s marketers recognize that their product is popular with families, honeymooners, singles, and seniors; they virtually target the “everyman.” Demographic segmentation, thus far, has been seemingly immaterial for Carnival since the prototypical Carnival Customer is “one who cruises simply to have fun”. Carnival marketers believe that a vacation destination with a wider menu of choice is tantamount to casting a bigger net,” bigger nets yield more fish”. With a theme of “Fun Ships” combined with low pricing, Carnival appealed to a diverse market. However, under the pressure of increasing competition, Carnival is challenged to refine its Fun Ships brand without damaging the considerable equity contained in that brand.(Kwortnik,2006) In particular, as cruise lines become less
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