Lisa Kauffman joined Azamara in August, returning to the cruise industry exactly 10 years after she left Celebrity, where she’d held the role of Chief Marketing Officer.
In her new position as Chief Marketing Officer at Azamara, Lisa has been reunited with Chief International Sales Officer David Siewers and CEO Dondra Ritzenthaler, both of whom she worked with at Celebrity.
“I am thrilled to be back in the cruise industry, there is a wonderful sense of trust and camaraderie,” she said, having flown into London for the first meeting of Azamara’s new Agent Advisory Panel.
Lisa described the boutique, four-ship cruise line as ‘almost like a startup’. In fact, it launched in 2007, but it was sold by Royal Caribbean in 2021 to a private equity firm and has since been establishing itself as an independent cruise line.
“It was a difficult transition,” admitted Lisa, “but that headache is in the rear-view mirror.” She said the challenge now is ‘how do we tell the story of Azamara?’.
Some 40% of Azamara’s clientele are repeat customers, and, as its cruises are typically longer than others, they’re mainly retirees with a decent level of disposable income. Lisa said the ‘ultimate marketing challenge’ was getting those loyal customers to reaffirm, while refining the product to appeal to new customers.
One of Lisa’s aims is to work with more influencers to ramp up its video storytelling to attract new cruisers. “It is such an immersive experience (over half of Azamara’s cruises include late nights or overnight in ports of call) that a picture doesn’t do it justice,” said Lisa. “Doing more videos is a big push, from my standpoint.
“Any time a video brings our crew into the story, the engagement triples. Creating that emotional connection with guests is important in a crowded market. For new-to-cruise, that connection is very important, because they are on our ships for 12 nights.”
Lisa described Instagram and Facebook as ‘great channels’ for Azamara, but she said agents – who bring in more than 90% of its UK sales – are vital to the cruise line, hence the relaunched this year of its Partner Advisory Panel.
