Last month, I wrote about Queen Victoria and my interview with Captain Chris Rynd. I am returning again to that ship as the subject of this week’s blog and am posting an interview that I did with her Hotel Manager Jacqueline (Jackie) Hodgson. My reason for focusing again on Queen Victoria is that she is such a pivotal ship in Cunard’s history.
In the late 1990s, Cunard consisted of a polyglot fleet with ships of various sizes, origins and ages. These ships appealed to different market segments - - some were ultra-luxury, some were premium ships, and some were mass market. This was not the result of a carefully designed plan to diversify but rather reflected changes in the various changes in the company’s direction over the last quarter century. Furthermore, not only did the company lack cohesion and direction but it was owned by a corporation that did not want to be in the passenger ship business. Cunard did not appear to have much of a long-term future.
Then, in 1998, Carnival Corporation stepped in and purchased Cunard. They recognized that the real value of Cunard lay in its ocean liner heritage. Accordingly, they stripped away all of the accretions that had grown up around that core and focused the company on developing around that heritage.
The first step was to build a new ocean liner for the 21st Century. Accordingly, they built the largest ocean liner ever built, the Queen Mary 2. While QM2 borrowed extensively from Cunard’s existing ocean liner Queen Elizabeth 2, QM2 has developed her own style and atmosphere that is much different than her famous predecessor.
The next question was how to expand the line and grow the business. As above, the value of the company lay in its ocean liner heritage. However, there did not appear to be enough of a market for transatlantic crossings to support building another true ocean liner. Indeed, even QE2 which is much more suited to transatlantic crossings than to cruising had to be relegated to a cruising itinerary.
The solution to this quandary was to take the style and atmosphere of a traditional ocean liner and put it into ships designed for cruising. Queen Victoria is the first ship based on this strategy. Thus, Queen Victoria is a pivotal ship for Cunard because she is central to Cunard’s strategy for growing the business.
Since the success of this strategy depends upon transplanting style and atmosphere so that the guests feel that they are on a traditional ocean liner, much depends upon how the hotel operation on the ship is handled. Therefore, while the hotel manager is a key player on any passenger ship, it is an absolutely critical position on Queen Victoria.
One of the people selected for this position was Jacqueline Hodgson. (Just as captains are rotated because a person cannot work on a ship all year long, hotel managers are also rotated). Jackie is well-qualified for this position, having spent 16 years on QE2 and having been Hotel Manager on QM2. She also knows about modern cruising, having spent 4 years on secondment to Princess Cruises.
During a recent voyage on Queen Victoria, I spoke with her about the ship’s hotel operation both in concept and in practice. My conversation with Ms. Hodgson is posted at http://beyondships.com/QV-Hodgson.html.
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