Tony Roberts, vice president UK and Europe, told TTG that the line had seen a “huge amount of interest” from travel consultants in the device - which will debut onboard Regal Princess later this year.
The Ocean Medallion platform will enable passengers to order food and drinks on demand; speed up the port embarkation and disembarkation process; locate friends and family around the ship; access their staterooms as they approach the door and purchase merchandise without any transaction.
It will later feature on Royal Princess from January 2018 and agents will be invited onboard during the vessel’s British Isles sailings, Roberts explained.
He described how travel consultants will be given “as immersive an experience as possible” during the events with the ship visits incorporating the new Medallion technology as well as news about how Princess is innovation in other areas of guest experience.
“The benefit of using Royal Princess is we’ll be able to get agents onboard the ship and give them a real feel for the guest experience,” Roberts explained. “The Innovation Tour is for travel agents across the UK and it’s not just the agents within a couple of hours of Southampton that get to go...we can run ship visits all around the British Isles.
Among its ports of call, Royal Princess will dock in Southampton, Liverpool, Belfast and Glasgow giving agents in those regions the chance to attend.
Roberts said that Princess would also be equipping its sales team members with Medallions to show the gadgets to agents during store visits and had launched an online educational module focusing on the technology on its Princess Academy training portal.
Roberts added that Princess would be “putting in a lot of time” to help support and educate agents on the Medallion Class, which features an interactive device in the form of a 1.8-ounce disc powered by proprietary technology and an Internet of Things (IoT) network of intelligent sensors and experiential computing devices.
Although Roberts said it was important for the line to “convey [to agents] the guest experience” and not focus too heavily on the workings of the device itself.
“It’s about the guest and how it can make their life easier and make their experience better, that’s the bit we want [agents] to talk to the customer about and say ‘did you know it’ll be really easier to get on the ship, really easy to get into your cabin, really easy for you to order drinks and food from wherever you are.
"It’s those tangible things that will make the difference.”
