Cruise lines that combine their brands' sales teams often find those unions don't last forever.
In the late 1990s, Royal Caribbean International tied the knot with Celebrity Cruises, but that sales union only lasted a few years. Princess Cruises and Cunard Line became sales partners in the mid-aughts but separated last year.
Now it's Holland America Line and Seabourn Cruises' turn to give a union a try. The two Carnival Corp. brands combined their sales teams this month.
Executives from both brands said the change would leverage assets from the two lines and expand a relationship they have been building for years. Since 2011, HAL and Seabourn have shared a charters and incentives team and have employed dual-branded business development managers.
Rob Coleman
"Our field sales team already is experienced in representing both Holland America Line and Seabourn, and combining forces makes us a powerhouse," said Rob Coleman, the newly appointed senior vice president of North America and Australia sales who has been tapped to oversee the consolidated sales team.
Coleman, who has been with HAL since starting there as a sales rep in 1999, said the new arrangement would benefit travel advisors who already work with both brands by offering them consistency and enhanced support. The sales team would continue to offer national consortia and core strategic partners brand-specific sales representation, he said.
Seabourn president Natalya Leahy said merging the teams will help both products.
"Combining the two sales teams enables us to leverage and integrate industry-leading reporting, analytics and commercial trade programs for both brands," she said.
Mixed reaction from travel advisors
Some trade leaders are skeptical of the move, one that several sources said included much of Seabourn's sales staff being let go. Carnival Corp. declined to comment on those layoffs or the size of the resulting sales team.
"On paper, this always looks smart," said Alex Sharpe, CEO of Signature Travel Network. "In reality, every time it's been tried, it's struggled and later unraveled. If [Coleman] can make it work, he'll be a legend."
The sales team members are now responsible for selling both brands, amounting to a bigger overall team representing Seabourn, which Sharpe said is good for the small-ship luxury line.
However, the team will lose the relationships that departing Seabourn sales staff cultivated with advisors, and those who remain will have to do double duty selling both brands and building new relationships, he said.
Geoff Cox
Geoff Cox, vice president of sales and marketing for KHM Travel Group, is not a fan of combining sales forces. He sees the consolidation as a cost-cutting move.
"Anytime a supplier reduces the number of people working with the trade, it's a bad thing," he said.
Cox found himself in a similar merger in the late 1990s when he worked as a sales rep for Royal Caribbean International and the brand combined sales teams with Celebrity. He is concerned that this consolidation, like the Royal one, could lead sales reps to pick favorites.
"Naturally, a rep is going to lean toward pushing one product over another if it's tied to their compensation," he said.
Rob Coleman
Tom Baker, president of Houston-based Cruise Center, has similar concerns and thinks HAL will be the brand the sales team favors.
"Selling a midpriced company and then having to shift to luxury doesn't quite equate in my world, but there you have it," he said.
Other advisors are optimistic about the consolidated sales team.
Amy Madson, an Orlando-based franchise owner at Madson & Associates, likes that she can build one business development manager relationship for two cruise lines and said she has been able to do that in the past with HAL reps who also covered Seabourn.
"As long as the business development managers can juggle the workload of representing both brands, I think it's going to be fine," she said.