Royal Caribbean faces claims of ‘stealth cuts’

Travel agents have accused Royal Caribbean International and Celebrity Cruises of introducing commission cuts “by stealth”, by increasing the proportion of the booking that is non-commissionable since last year.

Royal Caribbean and Celebrity deny any changes to commission policy

Bryton Travel owner Bryan Bath said although he has a commercial deal with Celebrity Cruises for 10% commission, he has seen the non-commission cruise fare portion (NCF) increase in the last year, meaning he now earns closer to 8% commission.

He said: “Royal Caribbean has always had a non-commission section but it is getting bigger and bigger.”

“PO were at least honest about it [cutting commission] rather than doing it by stealth.”

Bath said in a recent example, the gross price of the trip was £4,209.68, on which he earned £349.80 commission, or 8.3%. He claimed that £380 of the total price was detailed on the invoice as NCF.

Air fares, taxes, fees, port expenses and an onboard service charge are all listed separately in the invoice, not under NCF.

Phil Hindle, a personal travel agent at the Co-operative Travel, said: “It means there’s not much difference between them [Royal Caribbean] and CCS as they’re starting to let more and more stuff on to it. I’m actually getting paid less than I would hope for.”

He added the reduced payments made selling Royal Caribbean’s short taster cruises, which are supposed to entice the new-to-cruise market, hardly worth the commission.

Quartz Travel owner Paul Smith said he had also seen the practice creep in and believes it is another sign that Royal Caribbean is keen on growing the proportion of its direct sales.

He said it had driven him to focus his sales on working with cruise companies that support agents and has drawn up a list of four of them.

“We are still in the cruise market but we’re not proactively selling cruises; we’re only looking at the ones that support us,” Smith added.

A Royal Caribbean spokeswoman denied there had been any changes to commission policy.

She said: “Royal Caribbean International and Celebrity Cruises have not made any changes to the commissionable components of a cruise holiday.

“Both businesses continue to heavily invest in joint marketing activity and strong incentives for trade partners. There are no current plans to revise these policies.”

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