Why the Cruise Industry Stands Out for Diversity in Its Leadership

In contrast to hotels and airlines, cruising has more women in leadership positions across the sector. The rise of female leadership in cruising, though, is only the beginning.

“We all know that our industry is relatively young and everything takes time,” said Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, president and CEO of Celebrity Cruises at Skift Global Forum in New York City on Friday. “It’s no secret that the cruise lines were started by men and throughout time that baton was handed off to men. Over time, women were in other positions that made them ready (for executive leadership positions).”

Since cruise lines run global operations, selling to a diverse set of vacationers around the world, creative problem-solving is a huge advantage. The more diverse a cruise line’s leadership team is, the more flexible they are at solving cruiser pain points and improving the cruise experience.

“When you have a group or team with diverse backgrounds, you get to creative outcomes faster,” said Jan Swartz, president of Princess Cruises. “[Carnival Corp. CEO Arnold Donald] he has intentionally selected a group of leaders that work well together and bring diverse perspectives.”

As an industry, cruising still has a lot of room to grow. The challenge of attracting new cruisers remains pressing, although cruise lines are confident that competitive pricing and new tech improvements like fast Wi-Fi and RFID payment chips will encourage many to give cruising a shot.

“What we’ve seen is the number [of cruisers] at 27 million, less than 10 years ago it was at 17 million,” said Christine Duffy, president of Carnival Cruise Line. “But we’re still below 4 percent in the U.S. There are still a lot of myths about cruising we have all been working hard to overcome. For people that have not cruised before, that are not ready for 7- or14-day cruises, Carnival has great access. Fifty percent of the U.S. population can drive to our ships in 5 hours or less.”

Despite innovations like the Ocean Medallion and the glut of new vessels entering service, service is still a huge differentiator for cruises when compared to other forms of vacations.

“It’s still the little things that guests appreciate,” said Duffy. “In this industry, it is still about hospitality and how we exceed guest expectations. All the things we are working on enable that.”

Read an edited transcript of the discussion below.

Skift: So we have Lisa, Jan and Christine. And between the three of them, they oversee close to 60 ships I think. And they sail all over the world and carry several million passengers a year so it’s great to have them here. And it’s no secret that they’re all women. There are a lot of women on this stage…. I want to say that you guys represent the three big cruise brands that have women at the helm. It’s not like every cruise CEO and president is a woman. And that wasn’t the case when I started covering the industry in 2010. Jan, you kind of kick this off in 2013 and within the next year, Lisa and Christine, you were both named to your post. So I want to start with you, Lisa. How hard has it been to get here? You’ve been 30 plus years in the cruise industry. How hard was it to get to this point? And I don’t think the work is done; what more needs to be done?

Lutoff-Perlo: I don’t know if I can answer it in terms of hard. I think we all know that our industry is relatively young as industries go. And I think that everything takes time. And it’s no secret that the cruise lines were started by men. And throughout time, that baton was passed on to men and then at a certain point in time, it shifted where I think women finally were in other positions that made them ready to take these positions. And my situation is different than Jan’s and Christine’s, certainly. It took 30 years in my company to get where I am as president and CEO of Celebrity. I grew up in our company pretty much. This is my 34th year. And I think because of the experience, I was able to get throughout those 30 years starting at the … Well, I actually started as a travel agent, but coming into this business, I started as a district sales manager and methodically worked my way around and up for 30 years and probably ended up many years later having the right experience to make me qualified for the job. And I will say that experience really does help, when you are in these roles. So I just think that timing is everything. And the fact that we were all appointed within a year of each other is really very special as well.

Skift: Jan, you spent 20 years working with Princess or within Princess. I don’t know if you would say it was hard to get to this position, but what more do you think needs to be done? What are the next steps?

Swartz: I think huge credit goes to our CEO [of Carnival Corp.], Arnold Donald who is-

Skift: And you and Christine both are-

Swartz: We’re sister companies. Yes.

Duffy: We’re sisters.

Swartz: And huge credit goes to Arnold Donald, who is a very inspirational CEO. And he believes that diversity and inclusion are good for business. Not that it’s just the right thing to do, but that diverse teams, whether it’s gender, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, you name it, look at the world through a different lens. And when you have a team of people with diverse viewpoints, you get to more creative, more effective solutions faster. And I think the performance of our company has proven that to be true. And he has intentionally I think selected a group of leaders that work well together, that bring very diverse perspectives and and in turn, we pay it forward by making sure that happens throughout our companies.

Skift: Christine, yesterday Joanna Geraghty, the president of JetBlue, was here and she’s one of the only women leaders in aviation and the airline industry and she said, ‘Oh, but I looked at the list and I saw that there are three female leaders of cruise lines.’ And she’s like, ‘Well, I guess the cruise lines have it figured out.’ Has cruising figured it out, or is this just kind of a fluke?

Duffy: I don’t think it’s a fluke at all. I think that there is recognition finally, that you do need women at the table, just like you need lots of other perspectives. And to Jan’s point, Arnold talks a lot about diversity of thinking. And that’s the teams that we tried to bring together, not only at the most senior level, but as you go through the organization and making sure that we really have that kind of balance in the organization. I didn’t come into the industry the way Lisa and Jan [did]. I’m, as Arnold likes to say, the unconventional choice for this role, been here four years and I didn’t start in the cruise industry. I did run the cruise industry trade association, which exposed me to all of the different brands. So it was very exciting and different that I was selected for this role, but I think that just reinforces Arnold’s point that sometimes fresh eyes, different leaders at different times. And I think what you see here is pretty exciting.

Lutoff-Perlo: If I could just add one thing too. I’ll speak for myself, but I’m sure Jan and Christine feel the same way. Now that we’ve achieved what we’ve achieved, it’s really important that we bring other women along with us. And I know in my role, I’ve taken that responsibility very seriously. And we have to bring other women up with us. And we have to create opportunities in this industry especially on the marine and hotel side, where historically, it really has been all men and still continues to be all men. And so we have a significant effort going on at Celebrity to hire more women on the bridge. We’re up to almost 30 percent from 5 percent a couple of years ago. And just continue to find ways to rebalance the gender, even among our crew, where less than 20 percent of our crew onboard ships is women. Celebrity Edge will open with 30 percent of the crew as women. So it’s a process. It’s a journey, but it’s nice to see that we’re really on that journey.

Skift: So let’s talk about the cruise business. I mean we’re already talking about it, but 27 million, almost, people cruised last year. That’s a number every year that’s been going up, especially for the past several years, it’s been going up pretty fast. But that leaves many millions more who could take a cruise and don’t. Penetration is pretty low still, just in terms of vacationing. So Christine, why aren’t more people cruising? And what do you tell them to get them to take their first cruise? I know Carnival Cruise Line, which you lead, does a lot of work with new-to-cruise.

Duffy: So I think that is the biggest opportunity we have, is to continue to generate more demand for cruising. The number this year, 27 million, less than 10 years ago, it was at 17 million. So it’s been growing, but there’s obviously much greater opportunity. In the US, we’re still below 4 percent. And I think there are a lot of myths about cruising that we’ve all collectively as an industry been working hard to overcome. I like to say that Carnival maybe is the tip of the spear for the industry because we very much offer, 50 percent of our itineraries are short cruises. So for people that have not cruised before, that may not be ready for that 7-day, 14-day or some of the itineraries that Princess and Celebrity have, around-the-world itineraries, Carnival has great accessibility. Fifty percent of the US population can drive to our ship in five hours or less around the country from 18 US sail ports. So I think this idea of making it accessible for people who live near ports, you do see higher penetration than for people who don’t see a cruise ship or don’t really understand what that experience is. But I think we all are working to bring cruising. It’s not your grandfather’s cruise ship. And that’s really the story. At Carnival, we produce television shows that are playing on Saturday mornings for people to kind of understand the experience, not just on the ship, but all of the destinations that we visit around the world, which is pretty incredible exposing people to those opportunities.

Skift: Jan, is it good for you that Love Boat was a Princess Cruise: … Because you can think like, “That was my grandfather’s cruise ship.” Does that help you that there’s that pop culture awareness or is that something you have to overcome?

Swartz: Princes is very proud of the role that the Love Boat played in creating and helping create the industry really and bringing the idea of taking a vacation at sea into households literally all over the world. So I think I would say we’re very proud of that legacy. We’re also proud that today we’re leading with cutting-edge innovation, offering what modern vacationers are looking for. So years ago it was thought potentially, it was impossible to create land-like internet connectivity while at see and we’ve proven that it is possible. And today on Caribbean Princess, you can stream your favorite football game, FaceTime with your grandchildren. And these kinds of investments are essential to stay competitive in the larger vacation market and overcome some of the myths of cruising.

Skift: Who has the fastest Wi-Fi at sea?

Duffy: We all do.

Lutoff-Perlo: We all have great WiFi.

Duffy: We all do. But it wasn’t that long ago that actually people … We used to sell cruises by talking about the fact, it was a place where you could go that you didn’t have access. And that was not that long ago. And today …

Skift: That doesn’t play anymore.

Duffy: No, it doesn’t play at all. So we want you to unplug from work, but we recognize that people want to be connected and actually what you’re experiencing on the cruise, we want you to share because we’ve seen that the best way to convince people that haven’t taken a cruise is to have their friends who have had a great experience, which they’re sharing on social media, is what’s really able to drive a lot of interest.

Swartz: They just tell their office that they’re disconnected.

Skift: And then their office sees them tweeting and on Instagram right? You guys all have, between next month and five years from now, new, really different kind of ships coming out. Lisa, Celebrity Edge, which your baby, is a month away.

Lutoff-Perlo: Yes, it is.

Skift: And you guys have rethought balconies and the way that rooms are constructed and spaces that actually move from one level to another on the outer part of the ship. I’m not describing it that well, but-

Lutoff-Perlo: The Magic Carpet.

Skift: It’s called the Magic Carpet. So how are you thinking about re-imagining the cruise experience, but also not changing the things that people love? Like when you think you want to reinvent some of the wheel, what parts are you trying to reinvent?

Lutoff-Perlo: Well, we all have an opportunity as brands within the industry based on how we position ourselves in the industry to innovate and reinvigorate, not only our brands, but the industry. And when we started the project of Celebrity Edge at Celebrity actually, I came a year into the announcement of the new ship. And when I took the helm of Celebrity, we completely redesigned the ship because we really wanted it to be transformational, not only for Celebrity but also the industry. And the other thing that’s been really, really important to us, to your point, Hannah, is that we didn’t stray so far from what Celebrity is and what makes us special. We’re a very different brand than Carnival in that over 80 percent of our guests have to get on a plane and fly to get on a Celebrity ship. But we also believe there’s an opportunity for us to bring new-to-cruise into cruising based on the position that we hold, which is the modern luxury brand positioning. But we have five pillars at Celebrity. Destination, design, accommodations, service, and culinary. And Edge was meant to be a superlative on all of those pillars. So we redesigned accommodations with the Infinite Veranda in a way that was right for Celebrity and gave a completely different experience for our guests. The Magic Carpet was designed as a tender platform to make it easier for our guests to leave the ship when we have to tender into port, but we thought what a wonderful way to give our guests a closer connection to the destination by creating restaurants or entertainment and bars on different decks of the ship, which again created the destination experience that you really can’t get anywhere else on Earth. And when we talk about trying to bring in new-to-cruise, we’ve come so far but we still have such a long way to go. I’m saying the same things I did 34 years ago, when I started … trying to overcome those misperceptions. And I think everything that we do like Christine said and Jan said, with internet, it’s to overcome how people feel about cruising. And Celebrity Edge was to draw an affluent vacationer into the cruise market by thinking, ‘I might not have considered a cruise before, but I want to be on that ship.’ And that’s what we’re all trying to do in our own unique way.

Skift: Jan, you mentioned Caribbean Princess, which has fast — I haven’t tried it yet, but you said, it’s land-speed — Wi-Fi. You guys announced yesterday that every passenger on a ship, and that’s 3,100 people each cruise, is using this new [technology … I don’t know if you have an Ocean Medallion. You do. This little coin, Ocean Medallion, wearable technology, which can be used to pay, to get into your room. It’s for wayfinding, navigating on the ship, casino. There’s some other stuff that you can do with it too. And this has been a project that’s been a long time coming. It was first announced at the beginning of 2017 at CES. I think you mentioned miles of cables that had to be laid. It’s on the one ship now. You’ve got 18 ships. Is it worth it to put all this effort in? What are you getting out of this Ocean Medallion product? And what do you hope to get out of it?

Swartz: Absolutely. I think that our Ocean Medallion cruise experience is truly transformational in the vacation industry, not just cruise. Because it takes personalization to a whole other level. So by using this XIoT infrastructure in a wearable device, it allows us to create customized experiences and personal recognition. That dramatically enhanced the connection between the guests and our crew. So that when someone sails with Princess, each time we know them better and better and better. And so if I’m on a Princess ship, life just gets easier in the way that technology today enables us to do. Eliminates many, many points of friction. They get on the ship faster, keyless entry into their cabin, personalized recognition by guests and crew, invitations to attend activities that they’ve expressed preferences for. And this is going to allow them to make the most of their precious vacation time and consume more of what they love. And that’s the future of vacations in our view. So we’re really excited yes, as we sit here, over 3,000 guests on Caribbean Princess are experiencing the beginning of personalization that this ecosystem will offer. and we have every intention of fine-tuning and learning, both in terms of providing real-time enhancements to the guest experience while they’re sailing, but also from a ship design perspective for years to come. And so we’re very excited about rolling it to additional ships in the Princess fleet and some of the breakthrough experiences we’ll be able to offer.

Skift: Lisa, I’ve been to some Royal Caribbean events. That’s your parent company, where I walked in and it recognized my face and then I ordered a drink of my app and the waiter found me.

Lutoff-Perlo: Found you.

Skift: Yeah. He just like kind of found me somewhere in the room somehow. I know what you’re doing is really trying to enable seamlessness in the technology and you guys aren’t going the way of laying miles of cable, but you’re really taking advantage of the people’s phones that they’re already bringing on the ships. So what’s … I guess how are you trying to make this consumer-facing technology be a game changer.

Lutoff-Perlo: Well, you’re referring to the Sea Beyond event that we had here in New York about a year ago. And I think we all have a story about how we’re using technology to make the guest experience more seamless, more personal, more customized, reducing the friction. Again, you go back to what are the perceptions about cruising, “Oh, there are lines.” Well, these are designed to ensure that doesn’t happen. These are designed so a guest can walk up and we recognize your face, and all your documentation has been done before you get there, and you just walk on the ship and enjoy. We are looking at, you know, a wearable is an option, but for us, it’s more about you know everyone always has their phone with them. And so we’re looking at mobile. I will say that we are laying miles of cable. That does not go away. To create a wireless environment, you need a lot of wires. Miles and miles of them … And the other thing that we’re very careful about is that, technology is an enabler for our guests, it’s not an intrusion into their experience. And so Edge will certainly open and we’re retrofitting the rest of our corporate fleet of ships with all of this technology. And Edge will, of all of the ships in our corporate fleet, be the most technologically advanced relative to how our guests get on the ship and what they do on the ship and the systems and the applications that we have on their devices and also in their rooms. We’ll be the first ship to introduce stateroom automation, which we’re also very excited about, which can also be controlled by your phone. The lights, the TV, the shades, the temperature. And so these are things that we’re all looking at again, so that a guest experience on land is the same or as close to the same as possible onboard our ships, but again unobtrusive.

Skift: Christine, you’ve talked about, not that you guys aren’t doing stuff with technology, but you’ve also talked about the importance of the software and empowering your crew to kind of go out of their way to find unexpected ways to surprise and delight passengers. How do you think about the balance between using these tech advances that out there, but providing more high-touch, human service?

Duffy: So I think we’ve worked very hard at Carnival to make sure that every crew member onboard the ship knows how their role connects ultimately to the experience we deliver and they deliver to the guest to the point where technology is an enabler, but it’s not what’s out front. So as a small example, because it’s still little things that guests appreciate. So we have engaged our laundry team, who you know you can imagine in the laundry room on a large ship what that environment, they had never engaged with guests. So we put something in place where the guys in the laundry began writing notes when they sent the laundry back upstairs to the guests cabin saying, “Hope you’re having a great cruise.” And … guests started reacting to that and said, “Can I meet the laundry guy?” And they came up and now they were giving them a tip, they were engaging in an interaction. And again, I think it’s this idea on a ship because it is unique from a land-based vacation. You’re together. They live on the ship and work on the ship. And so the idea of having people feel that you’re coming into a space that is their home and how did they make people feel welcome. Ultimately no matter my own view, what the technology enables us to do in this industry, it is still about hospitality and how we exceed our guests’ expectations and all these things that we’re all working on are terrific and enable that to make it easier, but we still have people providing that service directly to other people.

Skift: I didn’t realize, Lisa, that you also started as a travel agent?

Lutoff-Perlo: I did.

Skift: I know that Christine, you started as a travel agent. So travel agents are crucial still to the cruise business. I don’t know the percent, but the majority of cruises are booked with travel agents. Do you ever see that changing? Especially as young people are growing up with the whole DIY mentality. They can book everything themselves on their phone. Christine, what do you think?

Duffy: I think like anything else, the consumer decides. So we will make all channels available, whether somebody wants to book with us directly or on Carnival.com or through an agent, but I think it really is for us, as the cruise line, making those channels available. Travel agents, I think, are more important than ever as you think about the cruise industry and the travel industry more broadly, with all of the growth that’s happening. People want a vacation that’s curated today, before they get to their vacation. I think in the past, you would book and go and then figure it all out when I got there, or I’m on a cruise ship so there’s one dining room and a midnight buffet. All that’s different today. So there’s specialty dining, there’s short excursions, there’s experiences on the ship. And so people I think are really looking for that curated experience. And a great travel agent that understands all of these different brands is pretty important. Because one of the things that I think also happens in the cruise industry over the past 25 years is we have … There is a lot more distinction between all of the cruise lines. And what brand is right for you, for the experience that you’re looking for depending on who you’re traveling with, what celebration you might be having, multi-generational travel. So all these different considerations go into how people think about what is the vacation experience that is best for me at this time. And that may change based on what you’re doing and who you’re traveling with, but that’s where a great travel agent I think is more valuable than they’ve ever been.

Swartz: I would totally agree. I think if you added up all the cruise berths in the world, it still represents only 2 percent of the hotel inventory in the world. And so we, as an industry, have enormous growth prospects. And travel agents have been essential to getting us to where we are today and will be even more important in the future because to Christine’s point, they are incredible matchmakers between the brands and their clients.

Skift: I think you guys did like, this wasn’t with a travel agent, but didn’t you guys do like a Tinder for cruise at one point?

Swartz: Yes.

Skift: Speaking of matchmaking.

Lutoff-Perlo: I think also that a big point about our industry is it’s still growing. And as long as an industry is growing, there’s tremendous opportunity for the travel agent community to continue to do more and more cruise business. I think it would be more of a concern or a question if it was just a stagnant industry, where a business was shifting, but it’s growing in all channels. And to echo what Jan and Christine have said, I know for Celebrity, the vast majority of our business is booked through travel agents. I don’t see that changing. And I think that the value that travel agents add in helping, or travel advisors, helping connect the right guest-

Skift: You’ve got the memo that they want to be [called advisors].

Lutoff-Perlo: I did and I don’t blame them. And I also think that it’s important that you match the right guest with the right brand. Because that’s a way to lose business and that’s a way to get more future business. And I think that’s what’s critically important in the role of a travel agent. Consumers are doing a lot of research, even with the help of a travel agent … but I think it’s really important that the right guest gets on the right ship.

Skift: We covered this issue overtourism a lot at Skift, basically destinations being overwhelmed or inundated by people and they can’t handle it. And I think the cruise industry has kind of been the poster child for that in some destinations. Venice, Croatia. You have some small communities that say, “We can’t handle it.” How do you guys work with destinations to … And I know you say there’s great economic impact, and I think there’s no denying that you’re bringing people into these destinations, who are spending money. But at the same time, places are looking for long stays and high-spending guests. So how are you working to maximize the benefit to destinations and minimize any negative impact?

Lutoff-Perlo: I’ll start and I’m sure Jan and Christine would like to weigh in on this as well. I think as an industry, I know that we are the poster child even though our impact is quite small relative to other tourism that’s going on, but we are probably the most visible. And we do bring multiple people into these destinations. And I think it’s an opportunity for our industry to sit down and have deeper conversations and be more partners in those communities so that we both understand each other’s point of view and how we might continue to do what we do and bring our guests to these places that are so wonderful and contribute to the economic development in tourism money that is so important to these destinations. I think we can … I know that we work everyday to have a deeper and better relationship, especially with the places that are most concerned about it.

Duffy: I would say a recent example is in Dubrovnik, where I think the industry through the trade association has worked specifically with the mayor on how do we better plan and coordinate. So you know the challenge for the cruise industry is each one of our cruise lines are planning their deployments and their itineraries. Those go to the destination. So I think there’s more focus and awareness, especially in some of these more popular places, that on the government side they have to help us help them by really looking at and planning how do you manage so that the people that we are bringing to the destination, whether you know have the right experience. And that we create that working together. I know at WTTC, two years ago, we had a panel on this topic and the tourism minister for Jamaica was there. And he acknowledged that destinations also have to think about how they’re developing the destination over time, that they have to think more broadly. So in some places where there may be two ports that you can bring ships. And some are for larger ships and some maybe for smaller ships. So I think it really … The important thing now is that there is a conversation. Everybody has very high awareness and wants to make sure we all do the right thing because it needs to be a win-win for the people who live in the community, the people that rely on tourism, for the economic benefit and for our guests that we’re bringing to these destinations that they have the right experience.

Swartz: And I would just add, Princess works very closely with local partners all over the world. I mean we cherish destinations and we want those local communities to feel like they are better for having had us visit. And so just to pick an example. In Alaska, so Princess next year celebrates 50 years of sailing in Alaska, the number one cruise line. And we take that as a great privilege. And so we’re bringing Royal Princess, which is one of our largest, newest ships to Alaska for the first time. And so we spend a ton of time on the ground with the local communities designing new excursions. We’ve just recently made an investment in White Pass Railway, such that when we pull into port with a larger ship we can speedily take people to see more deeply what are the cultural and natural offerings of the gorgeous places that we visit so that there isn’t congestion in town, but rather many more people are getting better excursion experiences and that helps with the economic development of those communities.

Skift: I have a very quick rapid-fire round for you guys. You plan long-term. You probably know what’s going to be happening in five years at your cruise lines. You know the ships that are coming. What about 15 years? What do you think the industry is going to look like? What’s the new normal going to be 15 years from now? You can answer that very quickly.

Duffy: Well, we’ve all … I mean we’ve got the first LNG ship coming to North America in 2020. And I think-

Skift: Liquified Natural Gas.

Duffy: We’ve seen Liquified Natural Gas. I think Princes will follow with their new ships. I think all of the cruise lines are really very committed and focused on environment and this new opportunity for us to burn [fuel] very differently. So I think that there’s a lot that goes into the business that is not really seen by the consumer in terms of the investments that all of us are making to make ships more efficient, safer, just all of the technical opportunity and a lot of new technology that didn’t exist before that exists today, that’s being built into all of these new ships we’re talking about.

Skift: Lisa, you’ve made the Infinite Veranda. You’re doing some moving bar thing. What’s 15 years from now?

Lutoff-Perlo: It doesn’t move. So I just want to make that clear.

Skift: It moves, but when you’re-

Lutoff-Perlo: It moves, but not [when you’re on it] … Yes. You will find it in different places throughout the cruise. I think the industry has done a great job and will continue over the next 15 years to understand what guests want and the different things that people are looking for in a vacation. And it will continue to evolve. The generations coming up are looking for different things. The cruise industry will continue to respond to those different things. 15 years is a long time. A year in this business right now is a long time. Things are changing at warp speed and the one thing I know about this industry is it will continue to change along with it.

Skift: You talked about the next generations and I’ll shoot this question to you Jan, but we can have the questions come up from the audience because I like the one about how successful have you been in courting younger passengers? And I would add to that, do millennials matter? Are you tired of talking about them? Or are you trying to court younger passengers and are you having any success?

Swartz: Absolutely. Millennials matter. But I think one of the beauties of cruising is that it appeals to people of all ages. So Princess as an example, we have cruises that are three days long. Quick jaunts to Mexico or the Caribbean and we also have a 103-day world cruises. And depending on the length of the cruise and the destination around the world, we draw people from all generations and so one of the beauties of our ships is that they’re made of many dozens of restaurants and bars. And so we have something for everyone. And I think that we carry a lot of millennials who find many activities onboard that meet their needs. And millennials, even more than some of the older generation, have a passion for travel and authentic experiences. And that’s where they’re putting their money. And so I think that bodes well for the entire cruise industry, as we deliver five ships in six years and growth amongst all of us.

Lutoff-Perlo: Millennials are setting all the trends. And whether you are a millennial or not, you want to think you are and you think you’re cool-

Skift: Millennial mindset, they say.

Lutoff-Perlo: Yeah. You want a millennial mindset, whether you’re a boomer or Gen X. And so they really do matter, especially as we curate experiences and create a different proposition or an evolving proposition, not different because cruising is amazing. And it still baffles me why people, so many more people don’t want to travel the world by ocean. It’s how it was discovered, and it’s magical. There’s no better way to vacation. And so that’s our mission. There was a question there, what’s the biggest myth you’d like to bust? And I don’t know if you’re going to ask that, but I’m going to take an opportunity-

Skift: In five seconds though.

Lutoff-Perlo: Okay. In five seconds, that cruising is not for me. People have to stop thinking that cruising is not for them.

Skift: Well, on that note. We’re out of time. Thank you guys so much.

Lutoff-Perlo: Thank you.

Swartz: Thank you Hannah.