By
Tony Peisley |
Norwegian Cruise Line's senior hotel operations vice president believes the brand's future can be seen in the stars. And Mike Flesch is a man with a mission.
“When we opened Norwegian Epic with the Legends in Concert and Blue Man Group shows, they were a compelling part of the whole proposition and really helped sell that ship,” Flesch says. “But we believe we can go much further in using entertainment to drive bookings for specific cruises based on the star power of the entertainers we book on board.”
This was the thinking behind the strategic partnership Norwegian formed earlier this year with Sixthman, an entertainment company that - since its formation in 2001 - has set up more than 40 full ship cruise charters featuring musical stars from Barenaked Ladies to Lynyrd Skynyrd and brands such as VHI and Turner Classic Movies.
Flesch says: “Andy Levine [Sixthman founder] has great relationships in the entertainment industry and we believe his company can put stars onboard who can really attract people onto our ships.
“There will always be the more traditional cruise ship entertainment with production shows and individual acts but we can do so much more with bigger stars, especially now that we have the larger ships to improve the economics for this level of investment.”
The importance of entertainment to Norwegian is clear from the proportion it takes of Flesch's workload, as he explains: “I spend between 20 to 25 per cent of my time travelling with the two Richards to see new acts performing in places like Las Vegas and Los Angeles.”
The ‘two Richards’ are vice president of entertainment Richard Ambrose and director of entertainment programming and development Richard Kilman, who both report to Flesch, who says: “We see a lot of acts and I am usually involved in the final decision as to which ones come on board. A couple of years ago, we took our entertainment production in-house with Richard Ambrose controlling the process of developing shows specifically for our ships.
“By doing this, we have been able to offer more and newer shows that can be changed more frequently than happened when they were outsourced. We now have two shows on Pride of America in Hawaii which we developed in-house and these have been very well received.” To outsource or not to outsource is an ongoing issue on the retail side of the onboard product which also falls within Flesch's remit.
He says: “The onboard revenue department reports to me and I am involved in the negotiation of the various contracts and also in the decisions whether to outsource or operate particular retail businesses ourselves. The result is that we have a combination of both approaches on our ships.”
Flesch joined Norwegian in 2009 from Dave and Busters, a high volume restaurant and amusement centre company where he served as senior vice president and he believes this experience has helped in his NCL role. “This helped me when it came to handling freestyle dining on our ships as you are never sure how many guests are going to turn up at a land-based restaurant every night. This means you need to understand guest flows and prepare for days of high or low demand,” he explains. “On ships like Epic where there are a high number of speciality restaurants, we also have to be very diligent to ensure that each one can handle the numbers that they are going to attract each night. But first we have to be able to forecast those guest counts accurately - sometimes even by the hour - so we can make sure the right amount of food is prepared.
Cruise ships’ restaurants are affected in the same way as those on land with venues all opening their doors at the same time to try to attract as many people as they can. Flesch says: “This is even more important when you have up to 5,000 people on the Epic as all those speciality restaurants have to be utilised so that we can ensure everyone can dine when they want to.”
Knowing the passenger demographics on each cruise is essential for understanding the affect on restaurant use as age and nationality affect not only where, but when they dine. Flesch says: “With this knowledge, we can plan opening hours, menus, and language capabilities of the staff. We do run promotions to entice guests into outlets and use pricing as part of them, but we don't do straight discounting.” However, pricing was used to solve one problem.
The amount of food waste generated by passengers ordering late-night room service and not eating what was delivered was reduced by the company introducing a US$3.95 charge for room service between midnight and 5am, as Flesch explains. “We found that the people who were ordering and not eating just went away and those who do consume have accepted the charge with little complaint, as they appreciate that these times are outside normal operating hours. “We find passengers are conscious of food waste within the broader context of reducing all waste and consumption of things like water and energy.”
Both passengers and crew possess a heightened environmental awareness, says Flesch: “I am part of an Environmental Steering Committee which sets targets and we have half a dozen on the hotel side, all aimed at reducing our carbon footprint. We are constantly talking to our vendor partners about how they can package goods so that they have less impact on the environment. The good news about working on the environmental issues, though, is that that you are also usually reducing your cost.”
Another big challenge within the hotel department is staffing, with the issue finding those with the right languages to match much-increased deployments outside North America, particularly those within Europe. “Historically, labour availability has generally been good for this industry it has become more become a great deal more competitive with so many large ships now looking for up to 1,500 staff at a time, explains Flesch.
“As a result, we have to make smart investments in our existing employees. So we have recently put human resources directors on board to help our managers make the right decisions and create the right working environment for our crews. We have also put trainers in so that staff has access to people who can help them educate themselves and advance their careers.
“If someone has a career goal, we want to make sure they know how to get there so that we keep them and not just train them only to see them leave to work elsewhere. We have a much better retention rate – remaining fairly steady – than hotels and restaurants achieve ashore, where the turnover is between 80 per cent and 100 per cent. But whether it is 10 per cent or 100 per cent, we hate to lose any staff as we know their experience is invaluable to us.”