WHEN THE BOAT COMES IN

5RESPONSIBILITIES OF AKEY ACCOUNT MANAGER

FOR DMC DENMARKor

..I worked as a Key Account Manager for the cruise operations department of DMC Denmark in Copenhagen.

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For anyone unfamiliar with the business of destination and service management for cruise ships, here is a brief overview of what that job entailed.

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I Client relation management ..................................II Call operations ...........................................................III Turnaround operations ............................................ IV Service management ................................................ V Product development ..............................................

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The client

The Los Angeles-based Crystal Cruises ope-rates the two medium-sized, five-star cruise vessels, Crystal Symphony and Crystal Sere-nity.

For decades Crystal Cruises has been ran-ked among the top luxury cruise lines of the world, and caters to a loyal segment of experienced and discerning travelers.

Crystal’s Baltic and Norwegian itineraries are very popular - hence one ship almost always spends a summer season in the Baltic out of Stockholm or Copenhagen

Crystal Cruises was a valued client of DMC Denmark since they first started sailing the Baltic seas in the mid-90’s and is today handled by DMC in Sweden, Norway and Estonia as well.

As Key Account Manager I was responsible for the communication and coordination with the corporate office in Los Angeles and (in season) with the ship.

I was also responsible for the planning, pre-paration and execution of both calls and turnarounds in Danish ports.

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Crystal Cruises & DMC

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Copenhagen

Los Angeles At sea

Corporate communicationsAnnual contract negotiationsNew program developmentsLong-term planning for:• Turnarounds• Special requests • VIP programs• Onboard enrichment

programs

Ship communicationsSeasonal set-up & verification Port of call tour requirementsShort-term planning for:• Turnarounds• Special requests• VIP programs• Crew arrangements

Illustration credit: JBL

Communication, coordination, negotiation

With such an exclusive client base, there was rarely a shortage of special requests that required much flexibility, ingenuity and customized response.

Securing reservations and admissions at very exclusive restaurants and venues, tracking down long-lost family or friends of guests, securing local onboard enrichment lecturers...

And then that time I had to find two adult-sized polar bear costumes for the Captain and Cruise Director to play a prank on guests during a cruise to Svalbard, Norway.

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Never a dull moment

Though Crystal Cruises was my key account I frequently supported and managed other key cruise accounts,

such as...

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Norwegian Cruise Line

Holland America Line

Carnival Cruise Line

Disney Cruise Line

AIDACruises

Fred Olsen Cruise Line

Key account support

When cruise ships make stops for sight-seeing purposes on an itinerary this is known as a ‘call’.

A call is typically a half day (5-6 hours) or full day (9-10 hours) spent in port, letting guests off the ship to enjoy the destination and running Shore Excursions for them.

Calls in Denmark are typically in ‘cruise season’ (May to September), although a few intrepid British cruise lines also called in December for Christmas itineraries.

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A port of call

As the cruises began, I would coordinate continuously with the ship’s tour office to match onboard demand with shoreside supply, adjusting prebooked services and resources and arranging any additional special services.

On the day of call, I would be present on the pier, directing tour operations, coordi-nating with the ship’s tour staff, settling payment with the purser, trouble shooting and checking tours back.

After the call date I would follow up on any remaining issues from the call and go about preparing the next call.

Operating a call

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Tour Guides

Shore Excursions

Meals /refreshments

Admissions/inside visits

Specialvehicles / activities

Tour buses

Shuttle service

Shuttle coordinators

Shuttle buses

Shuttle coordinatorsCity

Call Manager(key account manager)

Tour guestsIndependents

Ship’s tourmanager

Private car bookings

Illustration credit: JBL

Cruise pier

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Cruise call dynamics

Coordination of all ser-vices required for the tour program (guides, buses, meals, admis-sions etc.)

Shore Excursions

Coordination of private vehicles / guides / ser-vices for individual cus-tomized itineraries.

Private Bookings

Coordination of buses and freelance coordi-nators for a shuttle service into town.

Shuttle Service

Call services

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In the early days of Baltic cruising, only Copenhagen was a port of call or turn-around destination. But as cruise guests’ demands for varied itineraries and new destinations grew, more and more smaller Danish ports began attracting cruise ships for calls.

In the course of my DMC career I have worked with many vendors and authorities online and on-site from all over Denmark, making succesful Shore Excursion programs happen in Skagen, Aalborg, Aarhus, Rønne, Kalundborg and a few other places.

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All over Denmark

The operation in which a cruise itinerary starts and finishes, involving the full dis-embarkation of all previous cruise guests and the embarkation of new cruise guests in the span of one day (less than 12 hrs), is known as a turnaround.

It is a three-pronged operation requiring exact choreography of guest flows in the hundreds between multiple locations, in-volving staff task forces of more than 50 staff, and lasting as many as 7 days in its entire duration – all executed with the best possible level of hospitality services.

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Defining a turnaround

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3 teams, 3 locations

The airportwhere new and old cruise guests arrive and depart continuously all day long

An airport teamto direct and assist guests with cruise packages in and out of the airport

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The hotel(s)where the guests on the pre- and post-cruise programs are staying

A hotel teamto direct and assist all guests on the pre- or

post-cruise programs and liaise with the hotel(s)

3 teams, 3 locations

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The cruise pierwhere one set of guests disembark

AM, another one embarks PM.

A pier teamto direct and assist disembarking guests and

to direct and check-in all embarking guests

3 teams, 3 locations

Cruise pier Airport

Hotel(s)

Embarking

Disembarking

Pre-cruise

Pier team

Airport team

Hotel team(s)(Hospitality Desk)

Transfer Assistants

Pre-

crui

se

Post-cruise

Post

-cru

ise

Interim

Interim team (Hospitality Desk)

Only during Pre- & Post- phases

Turnaround Manager(key account manager)

Guides fordebark tours

Transfer buses

Luggagetrucks

Illustration credit: JBL

Transfer buses

Guides forembark tours

Private cars

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Dynamics of a turnaround

The actual turnaround takes place in the span of 12 hours or less, but I also handled the pre- and post- cruise programs – the add-on package of transfers, hotel accom- .

19Illustration credit: JBL

Pre- & post- cruise programs

modation and hospitality services that allows guests to stay in Copenhagen for up to 3 nights prior to embarking (pre-) or up to 3 nights after disembarking (post-).

Pre-

Post-

3 night pre- Turnaround

day2 night

pre-1 night

pre-1 night

post-2 night

post-3 night

post-

# pax handled

# days

100+

200+

300+

400+

500+

Illustration credit: JBL20

Program duration & volume

Pre-cruise Post-cruise

Pre-cruise program – For the last 3 days prior to turnaround guests arrive conti-nuously and in ever increasing numbers and have to be met, transferred and taken care of at the hotel(s)

HOTEL

3 night pre- Turnaround

day2 night

pre-1 night

pre-1 night

post-2 night

post-3 night

post-

# pax handled

# days

100+

200+

300+

400+

500+

Illustration credit: JBL20

Pre-cruise Post-cruise

Turnaround day – Pre-cruise guests de-part hotel for ship, post-cruise guests depart ship for hotel, arriving guests transfer to ship, departing guests tran-sfer to airport. This day sees the largest numbers of guests handled.

HOTEL

Program duration & volume

3 night pre- Turnaround

day2 night

pre-1 night

pre-1 night

post-2 night

post-3 night

post-

# pax handled

# days

Pre-cruise Post-cruise

100+

200+

300+

400+

500+

Illustration credit: JBL20

Post-cruise program – For the following 3 days the disembarked guests enjoy hospitality services at the hotel and transfer continuously and in ever de-creasing numbers for the airport as per their individual travel arrangements.

HOTEL

Program duration & volume

This is merely a simplified overview – the actual reality of operations is much more complex, hectic and often hastily impro-vised on the spot.

A turnaround requires extensive planning, a solid grasp of the ‘Big Picture’, utmost attention to detail, the best possible staff in all the right places, precision communi-cation and coordination as well as a tole-rance for overtime.

And more often than not, the true skill of a manager is tested, not in pulling off a flawless operation as planned, but in sal-vaging one that has gone off the rails. 2

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What’s in a turnaround?

Supplier relations

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In order to run cruise operations based on such a wide array of external supplier ser-vices, it is necessary to maintain and ex-pand the logistical framework continually.

The entire supplier network of transporta-tion, staff, services, attractions and venues needs to be continually maintained, deve-loped and contracts renegotiated in order to secure a reliable, innovative and com-petitively priced quality product to cruise lines.

This was a major part of my off-season duties.

Another major off-season task is planning and pre-booking all the required services for the contracted calls and turnarounds of the clients.

Every single service required for the exe-cution of tour programs and turnaround services, from guides and buses to meals, admissions, staff, hotel rooms etc. needs to be reserved in advance.

Based on the availability of services, a tour schedule is then finalized with the cruise lines for each and every call / turnaround of the season.

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New Year

High season- practical operations

Seasonal preparation

Post-season - contract

negotiations

Pre-season- final prep &

start-up

Low season - planning & pre-booking

Summer

DMC relies heavily on guides and free-lance hospitality staff to execute cruise ope-rations. As ‘outsiders’ to DMC, fostering consistent quality of services and awareness of DMC expectations was always a chal-lenge.

To that effect I developed a comprehen-sive guide manual and a ‘training program’ for local guides (held in Aarhus, Aalborg and Kalundborg) and an equally compre-hensive freelancer manual and presentation format, designed to get freelancers up to operational speed faster.

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Teaching & training

Cruise lines are always looking for new tours to vary their Shore Excursion pro-grams and keep them attractive and exciting to repeat guests. Crystal in par-ticular was very much about novelty, ex-clusivity and luxury.

I spent a lot of time researching new tour options, coming up with both new out-of-the-box concepts and innovative variations on the ‘classics’, and composing compelling write-ups on them, not just in Copenhagen but all over Denmark.

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New tour development

Over the years I have carried out a major overhaul, re-organization and expansion of the DMC Shore Excursion portfolio for all Danish cruise ports.

From a handful of outdated and obscurely organized tours in a few ports, I devised an expandable system of tour codes designed to distinguish tour type, location and duration in a 6-digit code, updated and added standard tours in a number of new ports, introduced ‘Sight to see’ categories, systematized operational info and much more.

HEL

CPHKAL

KOR

ÆRØSVE

ESBFRE

AAR

RNN SVA

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AAL

Tour portfolio development

SKG

These 5 tasks were my main responsibilities in the 5 years I worked as a Key Account Manager for DMC Denmark.

I hope this overview has given you an idea of my work experience and capabilities but I am always willing to share more detail in person, should you have any questions.

Thank you for your kind attention!

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So, there you have it...

Copenhagen, July 2015

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Other presentations

Resume of a Great Dane – my master visual resume

A Shorex Career – Visual review of a cruise ship career

1999-2006

Seven Feats from my career with DMC (Star Wars style)

10 clues to me – a personal presentation

If my presentation design and title reminds you of long bygone TV entertainment and starts you humming a memorable little tune, there is reason for that.

Title and slide design is inspired by the opening credits of the classic BBC period-drama When the Boat Comes In from 1976 for no other reason than that I remember that show fondly from my childhood and the title was a fitting match.

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‘Thou shall hev a fishy on a little dishy’

(+45) 50 34 60 66j.lyngsoe@outlook.dk

Jacob Lyngsøe

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Page 3 / Crystal Symphony - crystalcruises.comPage 3 / Crystal Cruises logo - crystalcruises.comPage 4 / Couple on balcony - blog.icruise.comPage 4 / Crystal Symphony - www.getacoder.comPage 6 / Icons by Iconfinder, Iconarchive & FindiconsPage 8 / Cruise Line Logos – respective websitesPage 12 / Icons by Iconfinder, Iconarchive & FindiconsPage 14 / Denmark map - netvaerk.tdc.dkPage 17 / Airport picture – bestourism.comPage 17 / Hotel picture – en.wikipedia.orgPage 18 / Icons by Iconfinder, Iconarchive & Findicons

Page 19 / Airport picture – simplexitytravel.comPage 19 / Hotel picture - www.buildingbutler.comPage 20-21 / Icons by Iconfinder, Iconarchive & FindiconsPage 23 / Icons by Iconfinder, Iconarchive & FindiconsPage 27 / Den Blaa Planet - designdautore.blogspot.comPage 27 / Helicopter - www.heliflight.dkPage 28 / Denmark map - da.wikipedia.orgPage 29 / Me in Aarhus - aarhushavn.dk/nyhederPage 31 / When the Boat comes in - www.tvrage.comPage 32 / Contact icon - www.iconshut.com

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Pictures & icons

All other images used taken or owned by creator.

2015