Carnival Cruise Lines Online Strategies - Research Paper Example

Firm Analysis Project- Carnival Cruise Lines s Firm Analysis Project- Carnival Cruise Lines Overview of the company Carnival Cruise Lines is a cruise line found in Doral Florida which is a suburb of Miami in the US. The cruise line is owned by a British-American Carnival Corporation & PLC. The firm has the biggest fleet having about 23 vessels which are presently in action that attract about 21.1% of the global market share. The North American segment of the company provides most of the executive management. The company was the first to initiate the shorter and cheaper cruises. A wide variety of activities are provided on board where the ships are widely known for their Las-Vegas mode of décor and leisure. This one of the reason the ships are popularly known as fun ships (Carnival Cruise Lines, 2012). Carnival.com has been in existence for over 18 years now and it is graded at number 8,333 globally. This is an indication that the website is visited by many people at a particular time period. The website has a value of about USD 8,651,845 and daily advertising revenue of USD 1,229. The website is very fast with an optimal load time for the pages of a bout 1.981 seconds. The page ranks 7 of 10 with about 327,600 daily page viewers. Presently, the site requires over 59.3 GB of daily bandwidth on top of the monthly 1.80TB that is also needed. Besides, the site has an SEO score of 79.3% and an IP address of 151.124.250.21. The server of the site is hosted at Miami in the United States. The site is quoted in DMOZ, Yahoo directory (Greenburg, 2009). Benefit, Cost & Value Creation – The Marketing Mix Carnival Cruise lines has a strong on-line marketing channels such as the blog of Carnival Freedom-FunShipIsland.com which has over one million visits in the recent times. This includes the CarnivalConnections.com which has the same features. As a founder in the arena of on-line marketing the new novels by Carnival web-based projects are formulated to give a great proficient and novel ways of getting out to the customers and travel agents who can easily get accessed to the different channels in a more convenient way. The customers have less to pay for the online services such that they only pay for the internet browsing which makes the services available and affordable by the majority. Moreover, the visitors are given unique outlook of the company and its products while at the same time obtaining them with appropriate tools for research and vocational planning. This kind of promotion has taken cruise’s fun ships to the highest level of unique experience. Some of the fresh web-based marketing initiatives comprise of a blog by John Heald which was initially invented as a section of the Carnival Freedom’s Inaugural European season web site (Datamonitor, 2010). The blog has come to popularity since then as it gives famous in travel-connected blogs over the internet. The blog has continued to take top 25 spot among the over 1.6 million blogs globally. Through the blog, customers are able to share interesting experience with the firm, connect to each other through social media and share a wide variety of humor. Consumer Characteristics The customers of CarnivalConnections.com are like a family and friends put together. Most of the customers are meant to plan and manage their fun, vacations, family reunions, girlfriend getaways and other social groups. Through features such as e-invite which is an electronic tool for invting all different types of friends and family members which is widely used by the travel agents hence attracting more cleint base. The features are very attarctive and easy to use. As a result, there are various social media bases such as social media and travel which keeps tyhe customers connected. Besides, through the social media eye for travels the company has been able to invent different tactics for travel and retaining the present customer base. In addition the customers are segmented In terms of online and offline customers. The online customers access most of the information on internet on the company’s site and blogs while the offline customers access most of the infoarmation in published articles and travel agents. There is a huge difference for online customers and offline customers of the company. The onlne based customers are able to obtain information concerning the company’s products in a more timely manner as opposed to the offline customers (Sloan, 2008). Branding Strategy The company’s improved site has updated information concerning the 23-ship fleet including the importance and value of having a program hosted by carnival. Corporate events and meetings can easily be planned and all the information required for the location of meetings and conferences to come. Use friendly sites are used to easiliy access information in connection to the benefits acrrued to choosing Carnival’s products. It has been noted that the web site has been rejuvinated which gives an ample opportunity for meeting requests and tight dealines with much ease. Therefore the site provides an assortments of features such as elaborate facts in connection to the latest ship fleets and avialble comfort such as accomodations, entertainment and destinations and other details. Much content is vaialble in relation to events, incentives, a sequence of expertise enrichment seminars and other business model services. Besides, there is a developed navigation tools which helps the company in obtaining instant response from enthusiastic customers. The products can easily pass smash test given the fact that its products can be easily modified to suit the needs of the customers in the market. Other Website analysis The website has other sites as the facebook and twitter sites. The platform for facebook gives an ample avneue for communcating policy and platform changes. This is to ensure that everything done within the firm is easily adaptable by everyone. Thus the web developers of the company make is certain thatgood content is updated to provide a clear commendation in connection to the best available resources vailable within the firm. Furthermore, since cruising is part of the social networking, such that when people are cruising, they talk, share ideas and information hence networking. Through facebook and twitter more credible outcome is achived. From this observation it is apparent that the company is doing less in relation to the utilization of socila media. Thus the firm is needed to loosen some of its policies on social edia use by the travek agents to boost the level of interactivity. Business Model The cruise industry has its business model as strong as ever while offering the best servies to the increaing number of customers. The firm continues to offer its products and services to the eteemed customers via the different sites and blogs and aims to increase this in future through its unique branding and marketing strategies. The company is an enterprise level by virtue of its operation and penetration in the market. The firm is no longer fighting for customers but rather how to retain them with much ease. The customers are made to feel the worth of their money through the fun ships. The customers derive value through the products because price is no longer an issue but what they pay for is the topic of concern. E-marketing Metrics The main objective of e-marketing is to ensure that Carnival reaches to millions of people worldwide. Thorugh the use of blogs and other social media the firm has made great efforts to reach the less penetrated market segments by use of magazines and printed media. Televisions are also used to to promote the products offered. Swot Analysis The company’s strength include; its size and capacity of operation which makes it the most recognizable brand name. The firm has a cost adavnatege over the rivals due to its huge size. It is also one of the profitable busienss in the world hence most people visits the site.its huge venture in the print media and television thus the market share is very big globally. However, the firm has a few weaknesses such as the decresing profit making level. Its overeliance on US customers is a matter of concern which might affect majority of its aernings from outside US. Moreover, the company’s fiancial reports are done in dollars. There is a relief for the comapny as there are opportunities present for the company. For example, the growing industry since the recent 10 years and desires by the customers to call for luxurious cruises as the best vacational choices (Marketline, 2010). The european market are divesrifying hence the increase inmarket opportunties. The vailablke threats include; bad press due to numerous series of accidents and continous attack from pirates which puts passengers at risk. The major competitors of Carnival Cruise lines are AIDA cruises, celebration cruise lines and classic international cruises which compete for both market share and publicty level. They are all passenger cruises specializing in fun sport and corporate events. Conclusion In conclusion, it can be noted that the carnival cruise lines can be ranked postion 9 out of the available 10. Howver, as noted in the discussion, the company msut cease forcing the employees not use the web site for . This will ensure ample publicity by the firm. In so doing the social media and blog use will ensure great performance from. From the discusion, it has been noted in particular the company uses much of the blog and th site to market its products, this is very commendable but much is needed in terms of allowing travel agents use the social networks like facebook and twitter to market the company. No restrictions must be put against such moves and it limits the freedom of social networks and creativity among the employees. References Carnival Cruise Lines. (2012). About Us. Retrieved on July 29, 2012 from www.carnival.com Datamonitor. (2010). Carnival Information. Retrieved on July 29, 2012 from www.datamonitor.com Greenburg, P. (July 2009). Three Passengers Fall Off Carnival Cruise Ships In Three Weeks. Retrieved on July 29, 2012 from http://www.petergreenberg.com/2009/06/17/three-passengers-fall-off-carnival-cruise-ships-in-three-weeks/ Marketline. (2010). Carnival Company Profile. Retrieved on July 29, 2012 from www.marketlineinfo.com Sloan, G. (2008). Cruise ship passengers describe pop, pop, pop of gunfire as pirates attacked. Retrieved on July 29, 2012 from http://travel.usatoday.com/cruises/legacy/item.aspx?ak=59427724.blog&type=blog Read More