In this context, Travel2latam spoke with Clem Galindo, Senior Manager of International Sales for Corporate Incentives and Charter at Royal Caribbean.
What are the goals and perspectives with which you present yourselves here at IBTM?
We always come here to IBTM World in Barcelona. It is very important to be present, but also to continue talking about the new ships like Icon of the Seas and Star of the Seas, which is coming out now. We already have 28 ships in Royal Caribbean and the meetings on board, incentives, conference rooms, do not have any extra cost.
Tell us a little about the routes offered for the MICE segment.
Here, specifically in the Mediterranean, they are looking for many departures from Barcelona, Rome and Athens. And although they are seven nights, we have the option for the client to get off earlier, disembark earlier and spend one, three or four nights. This has been a benefit for them, because many times they cannot spend the full seven nights leaving the Mediterranean.
And in the Caribbean?
We rule the Caribbean, offering three-, four-, five-night and longer stays from Miami, Tampa or Galveston, which has a brand new port, and we have ships from the smallest of 1,900 passengers to the Icon of the Seas of 7,000.
We are ending the year, how has 2024 been for Royal Caribbean in terms of MICE?
It has been a huge success, not only the Icon of the Seas and the conference rooms on board, but all the other Royal Caribbean ships with the conference rooms have had a huge impact and extremely positive results.
What are your expectations for 2025?
For 2025 and 2026, MICE sales are already growing tremendously, but specifically the Serenade of the Seas ship leaving from Cartagena and Panama, is a seven-night Panama-Panama or seven-night Cartagena-Cartagena trip. The benefit is that visas are not required leaving from those ports.
We already have many of the departures scheduled because it starts in October of next year, we are already fully sold out and we are looking positively towards 2026.