Interview: Royal Caribbean’s CIO on Making Cruise Ship Wi-Fi Faster
Photo Credit: Two of the newest and most technologically advanced ships, Allure of the Seas meeting Oasis of the Seas. Royal Caribbean International
Skift Take
The cruise lines have realized that allowing its customers to communicate while traveling is good marketing and good business.
For cruise lines, the past 15 years have been a period of constant evolution around customer-facing communications and information technologies.
Where travelers once boarded cruise ships with the expectation of complete communications blackout from their daily lives, they now board with the expectation of total 24/7 connectivity — nevermind that they're bobbing on the ocean, hundreds of miles beyond range of the nearest networks.
To meet customer expectations and drive brand penetration, cruise lines and their service providers are innovating communications and information technologies within a set of constraints that have no parallel in the land-based resort business.
To gain deeper insights into how cruise lines are adapting to the cultural shift toward mobile technology, Skift spoke with Bill Martin, VP and Chief Information Officer at Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd., parent company of Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, Azamara Club Cruises, and European line
