Booking.com Alums and Other Online Travel Vets Team Up to Disrupt Cruise Bookings

25.08.2023 - 14:19 / skift.com / Royal Caribbean / Steve Kaufer / Dennis Schaal / Steve Singh / Cruises

The old boys network in online travel — yes, let’s call it what it is — has reunited again to accomplish a formidable goal that has frustrated numerous startups in the past. The aim is to disrupt online cruise booking.

New York-based Cruisebound, founded in 2021, reportedly announced a $10 million Series A funding round led by former Booking Holdings chairman and CEO Jeffery Boyd and Par Capital Ventures. The cruise startup, which aims to simplify the complex and still predominantly offline process of booking a cruise, has raised $12.2 million to date, according to Crunchbase.

In addition to Boyd, who joins the Cruisebound board, and Par Capital, the Series A announcement and a list of all-male advisors and investors on Cruisebound.com include Tripadvisor co-founder Steve Kaufer; Concur co-founder Steve Singh; Booking Holdings/Priceline alum Adrian Currie and Arthur Kosten; the co-founders of Rocket Travel (acquired by Booking Holdings) Bjorn Larsen and Jay Hoffmann; TripIt co-founder Scott Hintz, and ex-Flight Centre Group exec Atle Skalleberg, among others.

Rocket Travel alums Pierre-Oliver Lepage is co-founder and CEO of Cruisebound, and Claire Gibbons is vice president of product.

Cruisebound, which appears to be emphasizing mobile bookings and targeting newbie cruisers, is trying to simplify and automate through online bookings the arduous process of selecting the right cruise, choosing a cabin in all their variations from within a maze of decks, and figuring out discounts, port charges, and what’s included and what’s not in the total price.

Cruisebound’s mobile website (there’s no mobile app) is sophisticated and fairly easy to use compared with other sites, and has features I haven’t seen before from the bevy of startups that have unsuccessfully tried to crack online cruise bookings over the years.

For example, customers can select the desired duration of the cruise by manipulating a slider. There is a video FAQ early in the booking process, powered by Tolstoy, where cruise consultant “Claire” offered pre-recorded advice on what’s included in the fare, whether the customer needs a passport, and which cruise to select among the assortment of major cruise lines such as Carnival and Royal Caribbean.

For additional questions, site visitors can email a form, and as with other cruise websites, Cruisebound lists a customer service phone number atop its homepage for inquiries.

“We’re available 24/7 via phone, email or chat to help with questions, changes, and whatever else you need to make your cruise vacation a success,” the website says.

So Cruisebound doesn’t hope to strictly be an online endeavor, but if it can significantly streamline the online booking process and capture a chunk of customers