If you have seen one hotel, you have practically seen them all. While hotels can be quite beautiful and offer fine dining experiences, there is nothing all that unique about staying in a hotel. For this reason, employees may not be genuinely motivated by incentive travel if the destination is a hotel in a large city. However, a floating hotel is a different thing altogether. Instead of choosing a land venue for a business meeting, consider holding the meeting on a cruise ship. The cruise ship or floating hotel is an excellent venue for meetings at sea and can offer choice business amenities and services.

A ship charter can offer companies and organizations significant savings and provide employees with a break from the everyday norm. Individuals can choose to stay in a hotel room any time they like; however, staying aboard a cruise ship is not an every occurrence. A group cruise planner can make an incentive cruise easy and affordable for a business. A cruise meeting on a floating hotel may be just the things employees need to experience a burst of creativity and innovation. Inspired by majestic, beautiful, natural surroundings, a cruise event on a floating hotel can be profitable for everyone involved.

It's a well known fact that cruising for groups, meetings and incentives offers outstanding value with savings of up to 40 percent off land-based venues, but is it right for you? According to a recent report in Corporate Meetings & Incentives magazine, 34 percent of their readers had booked a cruise for an incentive event and an astonishing 72 percent said they planned to book one – an unmistakable indication of where the industry is moving.

If you are planning a group cruise for your next incentive travel event, you may be considering whether chartering a ship would be a more appropriate option than booking reservations on a cruise containing unaffiliated passengers. It may or may not be, contingent on a number of issues.

Initially, it is valuable to understand your alternatives. When chartering a cruise ship, you frequently can pick between group, half-ship and full-ship charter options. Full ship charters clearly allow for the most freedom, customization, exclusivity and prestige, while group-level charters will probably be most economical.

All of these alternatives has pros and cons; but, they each present distinctive advantages for those event planners deciding if chartering a cruise ship is their top option.

In order for chartering a cruise ship for your next meeting at sea to be a good goal, you will need to have a definite number of attendees, a good idea of your event space requirements and the funds to make a significant financial commitment upfront, usually guaranteed by a letter of credit.

As soon as these things are in place, your next job is selecting the optimal cruise ship to fit your incentive event needs. This will need to include appropriately-sized meeting spaces, overall costs that are within your planning budget, a suitable itinerary and an overall quality that suits the level of service and prestige required by your meeting at sea client.

If you are planning a corporate incentive travel package, make it easy for yourself and delight your attendees when you go to Seasite.com start sourcing cruise event package.

Hosting a business meeting on a cruise ship not only ensures stellar attendance, it also can make your job as a meeting planner simple and convenient. At the same time, your company or client can enjoy cost-savings of up to 40% over a land-based event at a resort hotel. Cruise ships are now well-equipped to handle meetings at sea and will be standing at the ready with group discounts, business meeting packages and everything you need for a successful meeting when you contact them.

Part of the simplicity of holding business meetings at sea is that the accommodations, entertainment, meals, meeting venues, audio-visual equipment and décor are all included for one upfront price and can all be arranged without having to contact multiple vendors and negotiate multiple contracts. Opting for a cruise ship meeting allows you to choose from a wide array of possible destinations, as well as offering you the opportunity to select the cruise length that will best suit your event budget and planning needs. Depending on the size of your group, you may also be able to choose a half or full ship charter, which allows for a more personalized experience.

If conducting your next business meeting on a cruise ship sounds appealing, visit Seasite.com to learn everything you need to know about hosting meetings at sea and to take advantage of convenient group cruise planning tools.

Ship Charter Specialists Will Handle Sales in U.S. & Latin America; Two Premium Cruise Ships Will Visit Three Ports on World Cup Circuit

MIAMI, FL (March 16, 2010) One Ocean Club has appointed Landry & Kling, Inc. as their exclusive representative in the U.S. and Latin America to market and sell floating hotel packages for the prestigious World Cup 2010 in South Africa. Landry & Kling was chosen because the firm originated the dockside housing phenomenon and has decades of experience utilizing cruise ships as floating hotels. 

As the official sales agent for the U.S. and Latin American regions, Landry & Kling will offer a variety of secure and luxurious housing packages on board two premium Holland America Line ocean liners, MS Westerdam and MS Noordam. The two vessels will provide a total of 1,900 sleeping rooms. During the month-long event beginning June 10, 2010, the ships will be dockside at Cape Town, Elizabeth, and Durban for key matches. The 3,800 on-board guests will have the opportunity to attend games in World Cup stadiums in all three locations with transport available to other matches.

Packages will rival similar four- and five-star hotels with added benefits such as top level security, included entertainment on board, and all meals in a choice of restaurants. Shipboard guests have the advantage of only one check-in and transport from venue to venue, as well as the option to experience South Africa with concierge-assisted land excursions.

“The value for attendees staying on board is unmatched, given a cruise ship’s all-inclusive offerings, comfortable surroundings and highest levels of security and service, as well as transport between venue cities and stadiums”, states Joyce Landry, CEO of Landry & Kling. “While individual bookings have been selling rapidly, we are delighted to partner with One Ocean Club to secure blocks of cabins that would be attractive for soccer clubs, sports marketing companies and corporate groups.”

To promote the floating hotel World Cup packages, Landry & Kling has launched www.WorldCupCruise.com. The web site offers information on packages, cruise ship accommodations, match schedules, venues and booking details. Package pricing starts from $645 per person, based on double occupancy. For group planning assistance, contact Landry & Kling at 800-448-9002 or +1-305-661-1880. 

About Landry & Kling
Landry & Kling Inc., specialists in cruise event services, are credited with being the first distribution channel between the cruise industry and corporate America. Visionaries who led the way in seagoing corporate meetings and incentives, founders Joyce Landry and Josephine Kling ignited the corporate market for cruises by spearheading the meetings-at-sea concept back in 1982.  With their exclusive focus on cruise events and meetings-at-sea, they have played a crucial role in advancing the cruise ship as a viable meeting venue and creating a whole new focus for the industry. Landry & Kling leads the field in cruise ship charters for global events and “floating hotels” (e.g. for the Jacksonville Super Bowl and Summit of the Americas in Trinidad) in addition to incentive cruises and all kinds of meetings at sea. Now, 28 years since their startup, they have responded to changing times in the meetings industry by creating Seasite.com, the first online cruise portal designed for meeting/event planners and group travel buyers. Partners Landry & Kling were inducted into the Cruise Lines International Hall of Fame in 2009. To learn more about Landry & Kling, visit http://www.landrykling.com.

Cruising can provide an excellent travel perspective to incentive winners.  An incentive cruise offers a variety of ships from which to choose, and luxury amenities such as spas, gourmet dining and sports facilities, in addition to meeting rooms.  

Planners will appreciate the pricing structure, as well.  Cruise meetings typically offer a savings of as much as 40 percent over land based hotel venues, since everything is included in one price.

Incentive travel buyers may choose one of three cruising options:

1. Full-ship charter – customization options are virtually unlimited with a full-ship charter.  Incentive buyers may charter a ship for groups of 50 to 1,000 or more people.  They can have the ship fly the company flag, select the itinerary (within certain limits), create their own shipboard agenda, and much more.
2. Half-ship charter – usually incentive planners will charter by deck or by cabin category.  They may also reserve a dining room or one seating exclusively for their group.
3. Groups – no customization options, a group cruise experience is similar to that of a hotel or resort incentive experience, but at as much as 40 percent less.

All inclusive pricing allows incentive buyers to get more for their budget on sea than on land, thanks to the all inclusive aspect of cruising. 

Seasite.com, the first online group cruise planning portal, allows planners capitalize on the value of cruise meetings and incentives. Cruising can slash the cost of land based venues by 25-40%, allowing planners to persevere with today’s shrinking budgets. Why not make your next corporate incentive event a meeting-at-sea ? Take a look at Seasite.com today!