Guest speakers

[gengens]

So do you just not find out who the guest speakers are until you board and get your daily programme now? On QM2 on the 4th Sept and still nothing on the My Cunard site or anywhere. So strange. 

[BklynBoy8]

41 minutes ago, gengens said:

So do you just not find out who the guest speakers are until you board and get your daily programme now? On QM2 on the 4th Sept and still nothing on the My Cunard site or anywhere. So strange. 

 

We too for the 14 day QM2 sailing on Sept 23 to Oct 7...

May have to wait for on board...

[WestonOne]

Cunard is a business, we must remember.  Unless the guest speaker is a particularly famous name, they are unlikely to make more people buy the cruise.   If they are not well known, they will probably have no influence at all.  So while Cunard does list some of its more notable speakers on the website,  it doesn't see much value in letting everyone know who is speaking on which cruise (unless it is an 'event' cruise.)

That's marketing for you.  Some lines, including Cunard, make having good guest speakers part of their sales pitch.  It would be disadvantageous if you saw the list and thought 'who?'

Edited August 24, 2022 by WestonOne

[Host Hattie]

It's also a post Covid change, I suppose the possibility of having speakers cancel at short notice makes it easier not to publish the details at all.

If you weren't expecting someone you can't complain when they aren't there.

[Yorkshire Mike]

We had one cruise where the speakers included Jeffrey Archer and another with whatsisname Digby Jones, both well-known names, like 'em or not, and neither was publicised pre-cruise so good luck finding out who the 'ordinary' speakers are.  I spent time prior to our last cruise trying to do so, and even rang Cunard with no success.

If you do get to know early, I'd be delighted to find out what you needed to do to dig up the info!

 

[ace2542]

1 hour ago, Yorkshire Mike said:

We had one cruise where the speakers included Jeffrey Archer and another with whatsisname Digby Jones, both well-known names, like 'em or not, and neither was publicised pre-cruise so good luck finding out who the 'ordinary' speakers are.  I spent time prior to our last cruise trying to do so, and even rang Cunard with no success.

If you do get to know early, I'd be delighted to find out what you needed to do to dig up the info!

 

We had Brian Keegan the former hostage and also Jon Sopel as guest speakers. I am really hoping for Dr David Wilson the criminologist. Never happen though I don't think.

[gengens]

4 hours ago, WestonOne said:

Cunard is a business, we must remember.  Unless the guest speaker is a particularly famous name, they are unlikely to make more people buy the cruise.   If they are not well known, they will probably have no influence at all.  So while Cunard does list some of its more notable speakers on the website,  it doesn't see much value in letting everyone know who is speaking on which cruise (unless it is an 'event' cruise.)

That's marketing for you.  Some lines, including Cunard, make having good guest speakers part of their sales pitch.  It would be disadvantageous if you saw the list and thought 'who?'

I actually work in Marketing and this is not a great strategy. You're not going to lose anyone by announcing guests that people might not have heard of but you may gain people who are interested. Plus, those who don't know them may do their own research into the person or their field and get even more excited for the cruise. It just comes off as poor organisation and not thinking about the customer's experience. I know that my father who I'm travelling with would have been boning up on all the fields being discussed but now if we're turning up cold so to speak will probably be less interested. 

[gengens]

3 hours ago, Host Hattie said:

It's also a post Covid change, I suppose the possibility of having speakers cancel at short notice makes it easier not to publish the details at all.

If you weren't expecting someone you can't complain when they aren't there.

Yes I think this is probably why they're avoiding it but if they make it clear that speakers may be unable to attend, I'm sure people would understand. And would be even more likely to be understanding now in these Covid times. We did a crossing a few years ago and Lesley Nicol was supposed to be a guest but cancelled and while we were disappointed, I would take knowing in advance and that little bit of disappointment over not knowing at all. 

[alc13]

I would guess that difficulty in lining up speakers could also account for the the late posting.  Lots of people are still anxious about traveling because of covid.  

[david,Mississauga]

Going back, say, 10 years ago the list of speakers was often inaccurate. I can remember the names of  people, even some well-known people, being included yet they were not on board.

 

Then again, there were times when a name was not mentioned. On one crossing we were surprised to find Anthony Inglis and the National Symphony as a feature, yet there had been no publicity about that.  The maestro told me it was mentioned on the UK Website but not on the US version.

 

For our recent Alaska cruise on the QE, the booking site showed that Dr. Rachel Cartwright and Peter Hillary were the guest speakers. That was accurate.

[BigMac1953]

A few years ago, my wife and I had a couple of gins sitting at the bar in the Grill lounge on QE with a very well known speaker. He told us that when he fancies a holiday, he phones Cunard to see if they need any speakers, often at short notice. His condition is that it must be QG. It seems to work.

[gengens]

20 minutes ago, BigMac1953 said:

A few years ago, my wife and I had a couple of gins sitting at the bar in the Grill lounge on QE with a very well known speaker. He told us that when he fancies a holiday, he phones Cunard to see if they need any speakers, often at short notice. His condition is that it must be QG. It seems to work.

Haha that's the life! 

[WestonOne]

4 hours ago, gengens said:

I actually work in Marketing and this is not a great strategy. You're not going to lose anyone by announcing guests that people might not have heard of 

I don't work in marketing and never have, so I defer to your experience.  I was thinking of the situation where a customer is not settled which of two line to go with and one advertises a list of people they don't know and the other list has some names they do.  That might sway them to the other line.   That could of course happen if you don't publish a list, and the other line does, but then they are comparing an unknown list with a known, rather than than "a known but not exciting" against a known.

Subtle stuff.  Glad it was never my business to assess that sort of thing!

Edited August 24, 2022 by WestonOne