CHICAGO
Landry & Kling, a specialist in global cruising since 1982, unveiled Seasite.com at the IT&ME Motivation Show, held in Chicago this month.
Designed to be the only comprehensive online marketplace for planning cruise ship meetings and events, Seasite.com aims to make cruise sourcing as easy as planning gatherings at a hotel, opening the doors to what the company says is an “untapped world of cruise events for meeting professionals.”
“There are meeting planner guides to Dayton, Ohio, to Paris, to Australia and everywhere in the world except cruising,” said Josephine Kling, CEO of Seasite.com. “Cruising has come a long way in the last 20 years, and we think there’s a long way it can still go as a viable location for events. It’s not an elitist thing anymore—everyone is cruising.”
Kling said the diversity of ships, itineraries and price points makes cruising increasingly attractive as an event option.
Meeting planners are really expected to do more with less, and the way to do that is on a ship,” Kling said. “If you do the math, you’ll do a cruise.”
Following today’s technology and online planning trends, the company sought to provide meeting planners with the most advanced web portal for cruise meetings and events.
“More than 80 percent of planners are sourcing all of their hotels online now, so we felt if we didn’t put all of this information online, the cruise lines would fall behind in being selected as a site for meetings, so we felt that together we can grow our business,” said Joyce Landry, CEO of Landry & Kling.
The site contains a wealth of data to help planners decide which cruise lines and itineraries are the most appropriate for their group, and highlights include the ability to search and obtain information on 250 ships, including capacity of function rooms, cabin profiles, dining venues, entertainment choices and excursion options; the ability to view information on various destinations; and the ability to submit RFPs. Users can also view information on the obstacles and myths about business at sea and sample day-by-day agendas.
“The really great thing about Seasite.com is that there is loads of information for meeting planners in here that is not available anywhere else. It’s not even on the cruise line sites because the sites are committed to the leisure market,” Kling said. “Group planners have everything at their fingertips right here.”
Kling said the site features more than 35 cruise lines with itineraries around the world, and the cruise lines that are most committed to group business are founding marketing partners with Seasite.com, including Royal Caribbean, Carnival, Regent, Silversea, Celebrity, NCL, MSC, SeaDream and Sea Cloud.
“These are the ones who saw what an opportunity this was,” Kling said. “They see this as a productivity tool. We have the first electronic RFP for group cruises.”
Kling said Seasite.com has essentially invented a new distribution system that makes group cruising in destinations around the world available to any group, including corporations, associations and everyone in between.
Seasite.com plans to expand to include industry suppliers across the board, from transportation companies to merchandise companies.
“We want to be the be all and end all for planning cruise events online,” Landry said.
