Am I a Tweeter or a Twit?

Am I a Tweeter or a Twit?

If you are a Tweeter like me, does that make you into or a twit as well?

Don’t answer that! But many would understandably agree that the online mini-messaging service does little other than occupy those geeks who should have better things to do with their time.

I have mixed views about Twitter. While the ability to Tweet with from my laptop or mobile phone is a great way of sending out breaking news on events as they happen worldwide, I’m less keen on those users naval gazing about whether to have marmalade of Marmite for their breakfast.

However, Twitter cannot be ignored and neither can the whole online social networking phenomenon which allows you and I to interact on the internet in ways never thought possible just a few years ago.

Whether that means uploading videos of your last cruise onto Youtube or creating cruise holiday forums on Facebook, the ability to research all types of ships, cruise lines, itineraries and ports of call before setting sail has never been more accessible.

Internet revolution

My weekly blog for Virgin Holidays Cruises is just part of an internet revolution which is helping de-mystify the whole cruise experience and hopefully encourage more people to try out a holiday on the ocean waves.

Emerging technology such as online chat forums about cruising help keep prospective and past passengers abreast of developments in the industry, including latest offers and news about ships and destinations.

Only last week, P&O Cruises confirmed speculation, which had emerged on cruise specialist websites weeks earlier, suggesting that the 25 year old ship Artemis was to be sold.

The vessel is to continue in service operating its published itineraries until April 2011 and will then be chartered from its new owner by a German holiday company.

This is just one example of where the news filtered out online well in advance of a formal company statement being made.

Cruising attracts many enthusiasts and the specialist online chat rooms were full of talk about the future or Artemis and reminisce about good times spent on board P&O’s most intimate ship.
This is just one example of the power of the online medium. Most cruise lines now have extensive websites featuring more than just basic details about their ships and where they go to.

The more sophisticated include real-time video showing you exactly where each ship is sailing at any particular time of the day or night.

The web’s the way

Royal Caribbean International, Norwegian Cruise Line, P&O Cruises and Silversea are all deploying differing forms of web-based technology to promote in advance their respective new ships – Oasis of the Seas, Norwegian Epic, Azura and Silver Spirit.

Others have cruise directors writing regular often hilarious blogs all about life at sea.

I attended a conference of independent travel agents last weekend where an entire presentation was taken up by the opportunities new technology can bring to the cruise industry.

Yet it emerged that the one area where the internet has yet to spread its web is in the actual process of booking cruises.

It seems that only a tiny minority of the 1.5 million annual British cruise passengers are prepared to book online, although numbers are forecast to grow.

However, the importance of technology should not be underestimated because almost three quarters of cruise holidaymakers use the internet as a resource for research before booking, the conference heard.

Travel agents were urged to invest time and energy in the power of the internet or face a situation where their customers end up knowing more than them.

With industry body the Passenger Shipping Association predicting that the number of UK cruise passengers will grow by 500,000 to two million in three years time – with around 35 news ships due to enter service in the next 18 months – we’ll be seeing far more online activity.

Whether we like it or not, the likes of Twitter microblogs and Facebook fan pages are certainly not going to go away. If anything, even newer methods of communicating about cruising are likely to be influencing us as we move into the next decade.

And the great thing is, we will all be empowered more than ever to make better informed choices about the type of cruise we wish to take.

Here are a few cruise related Twitterers you may like to follow, leave your suggestions for worthwhile tweets to follow in the comments.

Phil Davies

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Posted in Industry

28 Sep 2009

1 Comment

  • Oct 05 2009
    12:51

    James Leavey

    Phil,
    You may be a Tweeter but you’re definitely not a Twit, as anyone can tell from reading your excellent informative blogs.

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