Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines 2014 Annual Report Download - page 18

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. 17
• maintain strong relationships with travel agencies,
which continue to be the principal industry distri-
bution channel, while enhancing our consumer out-
reach programs.
Safety, Environment and Health Policies
We are committed to protecting the safety, environ-
ment and health of our guests, employees and others
working on our behalf. We are also committed to pro-
tecting the marine environment and communities in
which we operate. As part of this commitment, our
Safety, Environment and Health Department oversees
our maritime safety, global security, environmental
stewardship and medical/public health activities. Our
dedication to these areas is guided by a Maritime
Advisory Board of experts and overseen by the Safety,
Environment and Health Committee of our Board of
Directors. We publicly share our safety, environment
and health performance along with our social and gov-
ernance performance through our annual Steward-
ship Report (calendar years 2008 through 2012) and
through its successor, our Sustainability Report, each
of which can be accessed on our brand websites. Our
most recent report, covering the 2013 year, adopted
the Global Reporting Initiative format widely used
around the world to help companies better identify
and report on the environmental and social aspects
that are most significant to the organization and its
stakeholders. Our brand websites also provide infor-
mation about our environmental performance goals
and our voluntary reporting of onboard security inci-
dents. The foregoing information contained on our
websites is not a part of any of these reports and is
not incorporated by reference herein or in any other
report or document we file with the Securities and
Exchange Commission.
Human Capital
We believe that our employees, both shipboard and
shoreside, are a critical success factor for our business.
We strive to identify, hire, develop, motivate and retain
the best employees, who provide our guests with
extraordinary vacations. Attracting, engaging, and
retaining key employees has been and will remain
critical to our success.
We focus on providing our employees with a compe-
titive compensation structure and development and
other personal and professional growth opportunities
in order to strengthen and support our human capital.
We also select, develop and have strategies to retain
high performing leaders to advance the enterprise
now and in the future. To that end, we pay special
attention to identifying high performing potential
leaders and developing deep bench strength so these
leaders can assume leadership roles throughout the
organization. We strive to maintain a work environ-
ment that reinforces collaboration, motivation and
innovation, and believe that maintaining our strong
employee-focused culture is beneficial to the growth
and expansion of our business.
Consumer Engagement
We place a strong focus on identifying the needs
of our guests and creating product features that our
customers value. We are focused on targeting high-
value guests by better understanding consumer data
and insights and creating communication strategies
that best resonate with our target audiences.
We interact with customers across all touch points and
seek to identify underlying needs for which guests are
willing to pay a premium. We rely on various programs
prior to, during and after a cruise vacation aimed at
increasing our ticket prices, onboard revenues and
occupancy. We have strategically invested in a number
of projects onboard our ships, including the imple-
mentation of new onboard revenue initiatives that
we believe drive profitability and improve the guest
experience.
Global Awareness and Market Penetration
We increase brand awareness and market penetration
of our cruise brands in various ways, including through
the use of communication strategies and marketing
campaigns designed to emphasize the unique qualities
of each brand and to broaden the awareness of the
brand, especially among the brand’s target customer
groups. Our marketing strategies include the use of
traditional media, social media, brand websites and
travel agencies. Our brands engage past and potential
guests by collaborating with travel partners and through
call centers, international offices and international
representatives. In addition, Royal Caribbean Interna-
tional, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Club Cruises
target repeat guests with exclusive benefits offered
through their respective loyalty programs.
We also increase brand awareness across all of our
brands through travel agencies, which generate the
majority of our bookings. We are committed to this
very important distribution channel by continuing
to focus the travel agents on the unique qualities of
each of our brands.
We sell and market our global brands, Royal Caribbean
International, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Club
Cruises, to guests outside of the United States and
Canada through our offices in the United Kingdom,
France, Germany, Norway, Italy, Spain, Singapore,
China, Brazil, Australia and Mexico. We believe that
having a local presence in these markets provides us
with the ability to react more quickly to local market
conditions and better understand our consumer base
in each market. We further extend our geographic
reach with a network of 38 independent international
representatives located throughout the world cover-
ing 115 countries. Historically, our focus has been to
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