Wednesday, August 06, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Park Place, Crystal Cruises benefit from partnership

Stu Dahl of Prestige Travel talks to a client Tuesday about Crystal Cruise's Caesars Palace at Sea casino. Park Place Entertainment is using the cruise ship as a marketing tool. Photo by Jeff Scheid.

Fountains and ornamental water features are common on the Strip, but only Caesars Palace seems poised to serve as Port Las Vegas for the cruise industry.

Shirley Marx, a widowed Chicago businesswoman, said Caesars Palace in Las Vegas launched her on cruise vacations and the ocean-based travel has reinforced her loyalty to the Caesars brand.

Park Place Entertainment Corp. operates Caesars Palace at Sea casinos on all three Crystal Cruise ships.

"The people who go on Crystal ships are high-end financial types, so we all go on the same cruises and bond with each other," said Marx, who owns Chicago-based New World Van Lines and has more than 500 employees.

Furthermore, the casinos are operated by the same staff, which Marx says she knows, and under the rules governing casino operations in Las Vegas with which she said she is comfortable.

Marx said she has sailed on Crystal Cruise ships 12 times, and the experience keeps her coming back to Caesars Palace in Las Vegas where she plays craps five or six times a year.

"I just enjoy the Caesars experience. In my case, the casinos at sea reinforce the brand loyalty I already have, but I think the newcomers I've met on the ships have been a lot more likely to try Caesars in Las Vegas (than they'd have been without the Crystal experience)," Marx said.

Although the market for cruise travel slowed down following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, it's now bouncing back, according to G.P. Wild (International), a United Kingdom-based cruise business consulting firm.

Growing at 20 percent a year, the cruise business is the fastest-growing segment of the international leisure industry, faster even than the gaming industry.

The number of cruise passengers, which totaled 9.4 million worldwide last year, should reach 10.5 million in 2003 and 13 million in 2004. The U.S. cruise market, which generated 6.4 million passengers in 2001, should break 7 million next year and increase to 8 million in 2005.

Despite the downturn following the terrorist attacks, however, Crystal Cruises in July launched its third ship, the Crystal Serenity.

Like its sister ships, the Crystal Harmony and Crystal Symphony, the newest ship features a Park Place Entertainment Corp. casino, Caesars Palace at Sea.

For both Park Place and Crystal Cruises, the casinos-at-sea represent an opportunity to target their key market demographics.

Cruises on the ships can only be booked through an authorized travel agency, and cannot be booked independently.

Stu Dahl, head of marketing at Prestige Travel, said the Caesars Palace at Sea casinos are cutting-edge in convincing customers to cruise and to picking Crystal.

Dahl said upscale leisure customers "know the level of service that Caesars is expected to extend" and book trips on Crystal, which he called the "uppest scale" cruise line, for that reason.

Park Place spokeswoman Debbie Munch, in turn, said for Park Place, the casinos-at-sea are "almost like having a touring headliner."

Crystal Cruises last year carried more than 50,000 customers, which should increase to more than 75,000 with the launch of the Crystal Serenity.

"We're taking our product to audiences around the world, rather than just people in Gulfport, and (the ships) keep refreshing our clientele prospects," she said.

Crystal Cruises initiated its relationship with the Caesars brand when it was founded in 1988.

Gregg Michel, now president of Crystal Cruises, was senior vice president and chief financial officer when the company was launched in 1988.

"Caesars had the best name in the gaming industry, with the highest consumer brand awareness, and the best reputation among gamblers. It still does," he said.

Crystal Cruises spokeswoman Mimi Weisband said her company is known not just for its luxury but for the variety of activities it offers upscale leisure travelers.

Crystal Cruises for the eighth year in a row recently was named best cruise line by Travel and Leisure magazine readers.

"Passengers like the Caesars (casino) quality," she said, and often plan follow-up trips to Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

And the "Caesars (Palace casino) staff understands the upscale consumer, which is a good fit with us," Weisband said.

Peter George, Park Place senior vice president for the company's international group, said the relationship with Crystal Cruises "is a natural fit with Caesars' (marketing) profile."

Crystal Cruises "exposes the Caesars name to some of the wealthiest people in the world. It's also popular with existing Caesars customers" who we can help make reservations to cruise as well as come back to our own properties, he said.

Crystal Cruises passengers are primarily North American, high income, well educated and interested in leisure travel, he said.

Caesars Palace at Sea casinos are small compared with casinos in Las Vegas, but huge compared with casinos on other cruise ships.

The Crystal Serenity's Caesars Palace at Sea has more than 4,000-square-feet of gaming space and offers 93 slot machines and eight table games.

George said the casinos at sea are not only successful marketing tools, but also profitable.