Shanghai, July 8, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Moving traditional incentive travel onto cruise ships, allowing business professionals to conduct business activities during wonderful and comfortable sea voyages, and to meet more business partners – this scenario is about to become a reality.
Recently, China's first domestic luxury cruise company, Star Cruises, and Ctrip Corporate Travel, a leading corporate travel management company in China, have reached a strategic cooperation. As two independent businesses under the Ctrip Group, the two parties will engage in in-depth collaboration on product development and service innovation in the incentive travel sector.
Since May, various overseas luxury employee tour groups have frequently appeared in the media, making "incentive travel" a hot search term. In China, incentive travel is roughly divided into two categories: one treats incentive travel as a marketing tool for enterprises to promote the company brand and thereby boost sales and output; the other uses incentive travel as a tool and means for managing corporate teams, leveraging travel rewards to enhance team cohesion, promote communication among employees, and reflect the company’s own culture.
Data shows that China's convention and exhibition industry is growing rapidly at a rate of 20% per year, bringing huge business opportunities for MICE (short for Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions / incentive travel) service providers both domestically and internationally.
A person in charge of Ctrip Corporate Travel’s MICE division introduced that participants in incentive travel are usually elite individuals from various industries with certain spending power. Travel expenses are often paid by companies or other institutions, so compared to price, organizers pay more attention to the quality and experience of the travel services.
Cruise tourism, as a comfortable, safe, and high-quality mode of travel, has a century-long history in the West. A person in charge of Star Cruises introduced that a cruise ship is a relatively enclosed space that can effectively avoid external disturbances. The ship is equipped with comprehensive hardware facilities, including meeting rooms and auditoriums of various sizes for business conferences, theaters, karaoke... OK lounges, bars, shops, swimming pools, restaurants, basketball courts, reading rooms, and other recreational facilities. At the same time, the service quality on cruise ships is comparable to that of five-star hotels, making it highly suitable for company tours, conference travel, and other business team activities. "Business professionals pursue high-quality vacation experiences in their personal travel, and the collaboration between corporate travel and cruise lines may also provide more private travel options for business travelers."
The person in charge of Star Cruises stated that Ctrip Corporate Travel has high-quality customer resources, and its Ctrip MICE division has extensive experience in the incentive travel field. He believes that through the collaboration between the two parties, more innovative incentive travel products can be designed.
Ctrip Corporate Travel is China's leading corporate travel management company, affiliated with the Ctrip Group. For nearly a decade, relying on strong resources, advanced technology, high-quality services, and professional management, it has served over 5,000 large enterprises including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies, as well as over 40,000 small and medium-sized enterprise clients.
Star Cruises is China's first domestic luxury cruise company, jointly invested in by Ctrip and Royal Caribbean. Its first luxury cruise ship, the Star Cruises “Century” ship, is based on Royal Caribbean’s “Celebrity Century,” which was ranked first among cruise ships operating in China in the 2013 and 2014 Berlitz Cruise Guides. The Star Cruises “Century” ship has a total tonnage of 71,545 tons, offers 19 types of cabins, 907 cabins in total, and accommodates 1,814 passengers. It made its maiden voyage in Shanghai on May 15, 2015. Based on the needs of Chinese consumers, the Star Cruises “Century” ship has tailored corresponding cruise products and service systems, localized improvements in dining and entertainment based on the original Celebrity Cruises, and pioneered an in-sea “WeChat” to address the inconvenience of communication on cruise ships, implanting the DNA of the internet into the traditional cruise industry. In the future, Star Cruises plans to gradually add more ships to form a fleet of domestic luxury cruise vessels.