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Royal Caribbean to Dial Back on Call Centers

By Brittany Walters-Bearden, TMCnet Contributor

Royal Caribbean cruise line experienced rapid global expansion. Now, the company has discovered that its rapid expansion created a number of “efficiency challenges.”

In a recent statement, Royal Caribbean shared its regrets that the changes to the company would impact some call center employees; “Unfortunately, this proposal is likely to mean some redundancies, and today in the U.K. and Ireland RCL has begun a period of consultation with potentially affected employees,” the company said in a statement. According to Travel Mole, a multilingual team in Guatemala will be responsible for handling the calls from travelers and the travel industry for Royal Caribbean and Azamara.

Today, there are 290 people who are employed through Royal Caribbean Lines in the United Kingdom and Ireland, but that number looks like it is about to dwindle when the company re-brands in January. One example of the company’s downsizing includes a call center for Celebrity Lines that will be manned by only 50 people in Addelstone, in Surrey. This is due to the fact that the company is consolidating its current eleven global guest and trade service centers in to only three centers that will be run by an external partner, Xerox.

The company has issued a statement about the changes that are being made; RCL says, “All of the proposed changes are being reviewed in order to best position the business for future growth, whilst maintaining a competitive edge and strong customer service for trade partners and guests.”

The new direction of the company will also see some changes in the upper levels of management, as Jo Rymowska is set to become the managing director of Celebrity Cruises, while Royal Caribbean and Azamara will each have their own managing directors, who have yet to be named. Dominic Paul will continue to act as the vice president for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa for the three companies, but Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruise, and Azamara will each have their own commercial, marketing, and sales teams.