InTeletravel President on sales surge in cruises and how travelers are 'revenge buying'

James Ferrara, InTeletravel President & Co-founder, joins The Final Round to highlight the rally in the travel industry as states are reopening and the surge in cruise sale bookings at his company.

Video Transcript

SEANA SMITH: Welcome back to "The Final Round." I want to bring in our next guest. We have James Ferrara, InTeletravel president and co-founder. James, it's great to have you on the show this afternoon. Let's talk about what we're seeing going on in travel because coronavirus basically brought the travel industry to a screeching halt, yet we've seen a massive rally in a lot of these travel-related names over the last couple of weeks. So I'm curious, just in terms of the cruise lines, the airlines all up pretty substantially. Does excitement that we're seeing in the market in some of these stock-specific stories reflect what's actually going on in the travel space these days?

JAMES FERRARA: Well, I think, actually, it might be a little better. I think stocks are probably lagging behind. There's a lot of emotion in the marketplace. But what I'm seeing from the inside is driven by consumers, is driven by avid and passionate travelers, and there is what Harris Poles termed a slingshot effect going on in the marketplace.

We-- cruisers are crazy. I mean, they can't wait to get back on the next ship, on the next cruise. And I would've told you two or three weeks ago, wow, we've seen this great 300% increase in the beginning of May on our cruise sales. But in just the last couple of weeks, I've doubled that over again.

So I think, from a dozen different sources, I can point to real evidence of revenge buying. That's really what it is. People have self-denied for so long that they're coming out of the box the minute it seems safe-- and safe is really the key. I'm asked all the time, when will travel return? And the only important answer is when it is safe for people to travel. But there are indicators now that we're getting there.

AKIKO FUJITA: I like how you call it revenge buying, that there's so much pent-up frustration. In terms of cruises, who's coming back? Are these people who would have taken cruises before, or are we actually getting new travelers who maybe would have traveled in a different way but are considering something that is much more contained?

JAMES FERRARA: Look, the experienced cruisers are definitely leading the way. And first-time cruisers are going to need a little bit more confidence to come back, right? But experienced cruisers are the ones who know that these scary headlines from the last couple of months are not actually accurate. I mean, cruise lines have been at the forefront of hygiene and sanitation for years. I get on a cruise ship for years, and there are sanitizer stations, sanitizer is pushed in my face, the way they're disinfected. I have to watch a video about washing my hands, not as a result of corona.

This has been going on for years. I've never walked into a hotel and experienced that, right? But experienced cruisers know that, so they're leading the way. Millennials are leading the way. Younger, more adventurous people are leading the way. And the rest will follow. We even have now Gen Z-ers, years early 20-somethings. And travel will lead the way out of this for the economy, and cruise is leading the way out for travel.

RICK NEWMAN: Hey, James. Rick Newman here. Just to push back a little bit on the cruise lines, I mean, one of the issues on a cruise ship is the density. I mean, you just have more density than you have at a hotel, regardless of sanitation. But that's not what I wanted to ask you about. I wanted to ask you about international travel and how you see that coming back because one of the problems with international travel is you could get stuck in there. And if you get sick, then you're outside of your network, and you don't know what kind of healthcare you'll be able to get. It's a little bit different if you're traveling inside the United States. So how are we going to deal with that problem?

JAMES FERRARA: Sure. Well, I think first, to come back from a cruise perspective, obviously it's closer to home, familiar. You know, the Caribbean is the big winner there. Very sadly, we lost the entire Alaska market for this year, never happened before, obviously, and will have a huge economic impact on Alaska. But Caribbean, very strong.

We're seeing a really interesting shift to river cruise domestically, on the Mississippi, on the Great Lakes, on the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest. It's always been a great product, a charming product, but it's hot right now because, again, you don't have to get on that long-haul flight. I think air is going to drag down the return of international travel, that airlines still have work to do to make customers feel safe.

SEANA SMITH: All right, James Ferrara, president and co-founder of InTeletravel, great to have you. Thanks so much.