In a branded Airstream trailer with an adjacent Caribbean-themed photo-op stationed at the Texas State Fair, Princess Cruises was running an experiment.

The cruise line wanted to test whether a regional marketing plan in Texas would move the needle on bookings ahead of the Regal Princess’ winter season out of Galveston. So, the line made an appearance at the fair in Dallas and road-tripped to Houston, San Antonio and Austin while the line deployed targeted multimedia and social media in these four cities.

Terry Thornton, CCO of the cruise line, said the regional marketing test boosted bookings “big time” for the winter season.

“We know it works and we’ve proven it works,” he said during a recent interview with me about how the company is revamping its pricing strategy.

Princess plans to shift its North American marketing strategy in 2024 to focus on regional drive-to and close-fly markets around its key homeports: Los Angeles, Galveston and Fort Lauderdale and Port Canaveral, Fla., he said. The effort will also include a focus on Boston, where Princess will homeport for a short season, where it will promote its Canada/New England program and colonial itineraries.   

It’s a shift, according to Thornton who said Princess wasn’t much of a regional marketer in North America before the pandemic. Previously, the line would invest in big, national branding campaigns and performance marketing via search engines, he said.

“Long story short, we’re going to invest a lot more money than we had before, but invest it differently in terms of regionalization,” he said.

“That won’t mean that we’re going to ignore Europe and we’re going to ignore Alaska. It’s just more of a shift of how we’re thinking about really building our homeport North American markets differently than we have.”

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