The Riviera Travel River Cruise Difference

During ASTA Global Convention 2017, TravelPulse had the opportunity to sit down with Jana Tvedt, VP of Riviera Travel, to discuss the U.K.-based river cruise line’s entry into the American market.

She started the conversation by explaining what the brand is all about.

Jana Tvedt: Our basic philosophy is that we don’t charge you for what you don't need. So, that means we include everything that we feel should be included. The basics are included obviously: your accommodation, your meals. We include all of the excursions. Everyone has to pay port charges, so that’s included.

What’s not included are things that we consider discretionary. So, that would be drinks we don’t include in the price.

We have a fantastic drinks package, which is $129 for a 7-night cruise, including beer and wine with lunch and dinner. Where most of the river cruise lines include that—almost every single one includes beer and wine with lunch and dinner—we said 'not everyone wants that.'

Same thing with gratuities. Gratuities are discretionary. So, we have a recommended amount, 5-10 euros per day, which works out to about $100 a week. You can pay zero if that’s what you want to do.

The other piece to this that makes us a little bit different and adds into the value is that we have a much more relaxed pace for our cruise. We’re going to show you what we think are the most important elements to see.

We’re a European tour operator, so we know. We’ve been doing this for a long time. And then we’re going to assist you if there’s something else you want to do on your own. We don’t sell optionals, but we’ll help you. 

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TravelPulse: Because those optionals raise the price, correct?

JT: Choice raises the price. [If] you can pick from one of three, everyone’s paying for that choice because one of those excursions costs the company $60 a person and one of them costs $20 a person. Depending on how many people are on each coach and efficiencies and all that, choice costs money. And so what we’re saying is we just want to show you Europe. 

TP: So, you guys are positioning yourselves with your price as a great value for the customers. Where else do you see yourselves positioning as a leader in the space?

JT: So, here’s the thing. We’re a leader in price. We’re very strong on price integrity. That means we don't discount. We don't do promotions. The price you see in the brochure, the price you see on the website, is the price today, tomorrow, a week before departure. The price never changes. For travel agents, it’s really important because they can sell our product knowing their clients aren't going to find it cheaper anywhere else.

So, putting all the price stuff aside now, the other piece to it is experience, obviously. And I don't mean palatial dinners in Vienna. I’m talking about the experience onboard.

So, we have five-star ships. Our ships are built by SCYLLA who is in Switzerland, who builds a lot of high-quality ships for other partners. And five of our ships out of ten are brand new in 2017 and 2018.

I don't want to compare us to the luxury providers because we can't compete with Tauck. We can't compete with Uniworld. We can't compete with Scenic. They’re offering a different experience than what we’re offering but, when it comes to the hardware, when it comes to the ship and the onboard service, we’re right there. We’re offering the same five-star ships with the same service, the same food.

The difference comes [with] all the choice and all the things that everyone offers [like] higher staff-to-passenger ratios. 

TP: If that’s not who you’re competing with, where are you carving out your piece of the market then? Who is your target? Who are you looking to be onboard a Riviera cruise?

JT: I will say this that in the U.K., our biggest competitor is Viking. And everyone can say their competitor is Viking. But in the U.K., we outsold Viking last year. What we’re looking at is, if you take a Viking Longship that’s 135 meters long with 190 people on it, we have the same length. Our ships are the same length with 160. Our prices are less.

So, you’re looking at more room on the ship. We have an extra dining room on the ship.

So, where are we positioning ourselves? I would say we’re not up here. We say luxury. We’re actually changing that. We’re refined. British refined. Time for tea. Relaxed-style cruising.

I’d guess we’d say from a price perspective, we’re down in the bottom third of the market in terms of price. In terms of experience, we’re definitely in the middle third with our ships and our experience.

TP: Onboard, what do you do better than anybody else?

JT: Afternoon tea. What we do better than anyone else is offer a European experience on a European river cruise. And I’m not talking about a German experience or a Scandinavian experience or any of that. We’re talking about British, and so yes, we like to have time for tea, and that means like Europeans do.

You take time for tea. You take time to sit. You take time to talk with your friends: ‘What did you do today? How did your day go?’ In our cabins, we have tea kettles, and we have coffee makers. We feel that that’s an important part of the experience.

We have award winning service. We have awards from the U.K. 

READ MORE: Riviera Travel Launches New Black Sea Itinerary

TP: So, how do you succeed at your price point?

JT: I think it’s because they [customers] get more than they expected. We’re exceeding their expectations.

I heard that a hundred times today. They’re paying a certain price, they get onboard and they’re like, ‘Wow, this is so much better than I’d expected.’

I will say this that the thing with river cruising—and I’ve been in the business a long time—is it’s a very small vehicle with very few people. It’s really hard to differentiate. Except for the mega-ships that are coming out now that can only go up and down the Danube and that’s it—because that’s the only place that they can sail. Outside of the hardware, the age of the ship,  there’s only so much you can do.

So, yeah, how do you differentiate yourself? How different are we from Ama[Waterways] or Viking or anybody else? I don't know. My impression of the river cruise business over the years is that it’s become a very all-inclusive product, and that’s raised the price.

And now it’s putting it out of the reach of some people that just can’t afford it anymore, especially people that are retirement age and have a fixed income.

So, what we’re doing is we’re saying we’re not going to be all-inclusive. We’re going to take some stuff out that you might not want, and then you can decide if you want it and put it back in. And that might not be the trend, but I think it will help us bring more people.

We have the opportunity to bring people to river cruising that might say, ‘Oh, it’s too expensive. I can’t do it.’

TP: It would be easy for anyone in your space to say, ‘We’re offering this at a lower price point; our standards are going to go lower.’ But guests are, in fact, getting more that they expect. Is it a cultural thing? Is it a training thing? Both? How do you guys do it? How do you guys manage to consistently exceed the expectations?

JT: Efficiency, it’s total efficiency. We run at 95 percent capacity on every departure, and we don't offer choice.

When you don't offer a lot of choice, you can be really efficient in what you do. So, you know when you get into port and you have 150 passengers onboard, that’s how many people are going to take the city tour. I don't have only 80 for this and 40 for this and 30 for this and they’re going to sit home. 'Oh, I need an extra local guide. Oh, I need an extra coach.'

And all of a sudden you have to price that in two years prior when you do your pricing because you don't know what your counts are going to be.

So, it’s efficiency, pure and simple. It’s efficiency and pricing. It’s efficiency and capacity. As you well know, it’s a fixed cost thing. It’s utilization. Because we don't discount and promote, we don't have to artificially inflate our prices and then bring them back down again. So, we don’t have to play that game. 

READ MORE: Getting to Know River Cruise Newcomer Riviera Travel

TP: Pretend you have 90 seconds. I’m a tour agent from America. Why should my clients pick you instead of AmaWaterways or Viking or whoever? Sell me to sell my client on a Riviera cruise.

JT: First of all, you can bring people into the river cruise market that may not have been able to afford it before, and you do that at a low risk because we’re an award-winning cruise line. We’ve been in business for 30 years. We took 40,000 people on the rivers last year.

97 percent of those said they’d travel with us again.

So, I think if you’re looking for somebody whose maybe new to river cruising or wants to try a different experience—and we get a lot of people from other companies that say, ‘Well, I tried this and I tried that. It was nice, but it was a little too much for me.’—you can come here, and you’re still going to get all the things that they offer.

Everything but at a better price.

Our main objective right now is we just need to build brand awareness and build our travel agent community. We’re really strong in the travel agent community. I didn't mention, we have lifetime commissions, so that means if a travel agent books with us today or their client books with us and in two years they come back and, say, book direct, the agent still gets the commission. 

That’s how strong we are about the travel agent community. We want to build that community because we feel that that’s our most important sales channel to build the business.

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