There's an iceberg ahead for travel agents who represent cruise operators. While they're still encouraged to fill berths on ships, they won't be permitted to bid on branded search terms.
As of Jan. 1, five cruise operators — Carnival, Cunard, Holland America Line, Princess Cruises and The Yachts of Seabourn — incorporated new language which reflects the ban in their travel agent contracts.
“It's something we have adopted…to protect the consistent marketing we want to have in the digital world,” Bruce Good, a spokesman for Seabourn says.
Five operators adopting similar restrictions at once might suggest a reaction to an especially egregious event, but the operators assert this isn't the case.
“There was no particular incident,” says Sally Andrews, vice president of public relations for Holland America Line. “As online technology has evolved and risen to the top of considerations for travel research, we have invested significantly in content, especially during the past year. The travel agency community is still very important to us. The thought behind [the new policy] is that as consumers search online they are looking for information about Holland America. The best place to find that information is on our Web site.”
“This approach of restricting third parties from bidding on a company's branded keywords is becoming commonplace throughout the retail sector,” observes Jennifer de la Cruz, director of publications for Carnival.
De la Cruz adds “Carnival will continue to maintain the travel agency locator on Carnival.com and travel agencies may continue to include Carnival in the ad text portion of the search results as long as the agency is following our established guidelines for online advertising.”
In years past, both companies and search engines have taken steps to restrict bidding on branded terms by affiliate marketers, for example. Yahoo will only allow such bids if the marketer is a reseller of the actual brand, or unless the bidder hosts an information-based site (such as a product review company) as opposed to a marketer touting a competitive product.
Google has been served with lawsuits seeking to prevent the company from allowing open bids on branded terms.
The difference in the case of the cruise lines is that the entities now prohibited from bidding on their brands are approved resellers of their products. While no cruise operator would say it, there's an economic reason for restricting competitive bids for their brands: Drying up the number of competitors for specific terms will keep their paid search costs down.
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