186 Keeping itineraries fresh and fun PLANNER PERSPECTIVE Carnival Cruise Line is a different company from the one Ugo Savino, director deployment and itinerary planning, joined 17 years ago but its commitment to constantly monitoring – and improving – the performance of its itineraries, programmes and ships remains the same. “For us, the main drivers are the profitability of the programmes and guest satisfaction, the latter of which is extremely important to us,” says Savino. “We seek to troubleshoot and fine-tune itineraries on a regular basis. Sometimes it is a matter of adjusting the port sequence and the port time, and sometimes it is necessary to change the itinerary altogether to meet the standard we expect. We are committed to ensuring our itineraries are always fresh, new and fun because that is what Carnival is all about.” In the past couple of years, a different challenge has arisen, following new and larger tonnage joining the fleet and some of the smaller ships departing. “This forced us to look at the [existing] details to determine whether the right deployment decisions have been made,” says Savino, noting that his team regularly talks with travel agents, past guests and new-to-cruise travellers to survey what Carnival calls the “health” of the destinations. “We try to understand the demand for different destinations, if they have a core value and, based on past performance, we try to adjust our deployment.” Carnival weighs up several practical factors when making itinerary decisions. For example, it will not tender its large ships, so it requires ports with sufficiently big berths to accommodate them. The availability of fuel bunkering is another consideration. When it comes to its three new LNGpowered Excel-class ships, Carnival has put a great deal of work into making sure they are supported by LNG bunkering Managing 5,000 annual sailings and ensuring they appeal to both loyal and new customers is challenging. Carnival Cruise Line’s Ugo Savino explains to Susan Parker how the brand delivers guest satisfaction Ziplining is just one of the many activities guests can participate in while sailing around the Caribbean with Carnival Photo: Carnival Cruise Line
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