Last year we created a new feature called ‘Have your say at theICEway’. The idea behind it was to create a quarterly platform to drive conversation. We started by looking at the cruise industry and asking a simple question: What are the biggest issues in cruise right now? Today we will reveal our findings and list out the cruise industry issues that were most quoted. Each quarter we will pose a new question; read on to find out what the next one is.
The ‘Have your say at theICEway’ webpage was backed up by polls on social media to ask about key cruise industry issues. We were delighted with the overall response and can now reveal the answers. If you did not participate then fear not, for the question remains open on our site and we will keep an eye on any future activity. For now though, drum roll please…!
On LinkedIn, we ran a series of polls on cruise issues across our ‘ICE’ and ‘theICEway’ channels. It is worth noting that on each poll, we included an option for “Other”*; the results were as follows:
What are the biggest issues in cruise right now?
Connectivity 44%
Staffing levels 44%
Environment / sustainability 12%
As you can see, connectivity and staffing both received far more votes than sustainability. We also ran a very similar poll earlier in 2022, with slightly different options (including “Other”*) and the following results:
Demands for greater bandwidth 28%
Environmental requirements 28%
Port infrastructure development 28%
Gaining new / younger guests 16%
There are many factors to consider before any concrete conclusions can be made but it is certainly an interesting set of numbers. Connectivity is clearly an important topic, plus it is nice to see the environment finally getting some attention!
*There were zero votes for "Other"
Over the past 12 months we also ran additional LinkedIn polls plus polls on our Twitter channel for theICEway. Let’s begin with our findings from LinkedIn:
- The most significant IT trend from 2022 was ‘the end of passwords’As for Twitter, we kept polls on this platform focussed on cruise and cruise industry issues. The demand for greater bandwidth emerged as the key issue again, with two-thirds of the vote. Interestingly, 100% of the same pool of people – followers of theICEway on Twitter – also regarded connectivity as best augmenting the cruise client experience in 2023. Would you agree?
Keep an eye out for future blogs on our social media poll results and do keep participating in those. Now though of course, it is time to reveal the next ‘Have your say’ question. We will try to come up with another catchy title for the second edition of this feature. For now though, here is the moment you have all been waiting for… the question:
What are some of the most innovative elements in cruise right now?
We will officially unveil ‘Have your say…’ part 2 on Monday 30th Jan. Of course, if you have an answer to this question right now then we’d love to hear it!