The Cruise Globe, a cruise tracking app making waves among agents and clients alike, "opens up so many opportunities for cruise bookings and agents," according to co-founder Matthew Jones
After launching in February, the app hit 45,000 live users this month, and has seen the addition of a live ship tracker so agents can track their clients as they circumnavigate, and a feature to integrate bookings and trigger a live countdown to departure.
Those features complement the core idea of the app: to create a Strava of cruise, allowing clients to reminisce on past voyages with 3-D representations of their ship and ports and view ships that frequent their dream destinations to help them plan their next voyage.
Celebrating the app's three-month-aversary, Matthew believes the app "taps into a lot of cruisers' desire to share where they have been, to talk about, and even show it visually."
Aside from the excitement around the app, The Cruise Globe arrives at an exciting time for the cruise sector, too. "The cruise industry is growing so fast. There is a massively engaged audience here, and yet there is still so much that can be done to catch the sector up to the rest of travel."
Trade potential
Matthew confirmed that the brand, which also sells co-branded maps of specific itineraries via The Cruise Maps, "is very interested in working with the trade part of the cruise industry more."
ROL Cruise partnered with the print arm of the brand; celebrating its 30th anniversary, the agency commissioned The Cruise Maps to produce co-branded maps to gift to its highest value customers.
"Personalised gifting for cruise agencies is a tough thing to do at scale, and a tough thing to personalise. That's something we definitely want to engage with more. When it comes to the app, it is an engagement and marketing tool, and something that can massively improve the after-sales and loyalty piece."
As the months sail pass, Matthew hopes more agencies will open the door to partnerships.
"We haven't yet hit our six-month mark: we are excited to build [the app] around what agents want from it."
Matthew Jones is the co-founder of The Cruise Maps and The Cruise Globe.
