CLIA, Experts To Harris: Your Poll Is Rubbish!

PHOTO: Trash. That's the overall view of the Harris poll from cruise and travel experts. (courtesy ThinkStock)

Garbage. Not living in reality. Biased.

That's the cruise industry's reaction to the Harris poll released Wednesday that said that the norovirus scares of the past couple years is still crippling the industry's reputation.

The Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) says that the numbers are telling another story. Their anecdotal and hard-numbers measurement of bookings show that the industry is in store for a banner 2014.

"The Harris Poll does not reflect what CLIA is hearing, which is that bookings are solid and cruise ships are leaving full," a CLIA spokesperson said in a statement Thursday. "CLIA just completed its annual cruise3sixty conference, the largest cruise conference in the U.S. specifically for travel agents, and reports from travel agents are that consumer interest in cruising remains high. Travel agents also report increasing numbers of first-time cruisers."

Pointing to hard numbers, Carnival reported a record month for bookings in January.

And that's not at discounted prices. Industry observer Stewart Chiron, aka The Cruise Guy, said if the ships were full with heavily discounted passengers, the Harris poll may have some validity. But that's just not the case.

"The fares are going up, but the value for the buck is there, so the ships are filling up," Chiron said. "That's what makes this poll such garbage. All of the indicators point to a completely different story. Harris' findings aren't indicative of what's happening here in the real world."

One of the leading seller of cruises in the world, Travel Leaders Group, also chimed in to say the Harris poll does not reflect reality.

"We can unequivocally state that the poll results do not reflect what we’re seeing throughout the travel agencies within our networks," said John Lovell CTC, Travel Leaders president. "In fact, we’re enjoying a robust 2014 in terms of overall cruise bookings. While our repeat cruise business is very significant, our agency networks are also reporting more first time cruisers entering the market than any time over the previous few years."

The Harris poll -- an update of research the company did last year after the Carnival Triumph fire -- specifically pointed to the newer reports of norovirus on ships such as the Explorer of the Seas in hurting some of the public perception gains they saw. 

Harris said that perception numbers were trending positive in January but sank with the polling done Feb. 14. The most telling numbers, they say:

- 59 percent of respondents said that air travel is much more reliable than taking cruises and a 54 percent agreed that air travel is much safer than taking cruises.

- 54 percent of respondents said they’re less likely to take a cruise now than they were a year ago, with this sentiment proving stronger among those who have never taken a cruise (58 percent) than among those who have (44 percent).

- Overall, the poll found that scores for Quality, Trust and Purchase Intent “were all still down significantly before the recent norovirus incidents, when compared to the state of these brands prior to the Triumph debacle. With all three measures dropping further still in the wake of the reported outbreaks, this leaves the average perceived Quality score down by 11 percent vs. its pre-Triumph level, with Trust down by 12 percent and Purchase Intent down by 13 percent.”

CLIA once again pointed to the reality of the norovirus statistics, as we did in chastising lazy media reporting in this late January column, and urged the public to look at the numbers.

"In 2013, there were 3 norovirus outbreaks on cruise ships departing from U.S. ports involving a total of 706 passengers," CLIA said. "By contrast, the CDC reports there are up to 21 million norovirus cases in a typical year in the United States. To put that into perspective, approximately 10.1 million passengers embarked on CLIA member cruise ships from a U.S. port in 2013 so this figure represents approximately seven one-thousandths of one percent (0.007%) of passengers."

Chiron said that while norovirus is a real issue, he has been on 207 cruises through his career and has yet to have an issue.

"My son dealt with it on one cruise, but I've never had it," he said. "The virus is brought on the cruise. It's far from a cruise-only issue, you see it everywhere on land. Holland America doesn't let you touch buffet food for two days because it typically take 30 hours for the virus to show itself," Chiron said. "The numbers are so miniscule to begin with and in a confined space, you have to expect some issues.

"But consumers are speaking with their wallets and their bookings," Chiron said. "They know the value they get on the ships. Cruise lines are reported near record levels of shipboard spending reflecting consumers are enjoying onboard offerings."

Lovell said that when it comes to norovirus, this is where the travel agents' leadership becomes even more crucial.

"You could easily come in contact with norovirus in a shopping mall or restaurant and never know where you picked it up. The only reason why you hear about the isolated incidents on cruise ships is because the cruise industry actively reports on those cases," Lovell said. "The same is not true for shopping malls or restaurants or most other industries because of the transient activity of those passing through.

"Our agents separate fact from fiction for their clients. Despite some of the negative headlines, our travel agents are setting the record straight and placing issues of concern into perspective, as well as providing common sense precautions."

Chiron took issue with Harris polling techniques in general.

"They're comparing air travel to cruising and it's apples to oranges. Cruising is a vacation tool, not a traveling from point A-to-point B tool like planes," he said. "I talk to analysts, I talk to consumers, I look at real hard numbers that show positive news for the industry. To me, the end result of these polling numbers is garbage, I wouldn't even use the paper it's printed on as toilet tissue."

Senior cruise writer Theresa Norton Masek contributed to this report.