Lead, Deployment Strategy

Journey with us! Combine your career goals and sense of adventure by joining our incredible team of employees at Royal Caribbean Group. We are proud to offer a competitive compensation and benefits package, and excellent career development opportunities, each offering unique ways to explore the world.

We are proud to be the vacation-industry leader with global brands — including Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Silversea Cruises — the most innovative fleet and private destinations, and the best people. Together, we are dedicated to turning the vacation of a lifetime into a lifetime of vacations for our guests.

Royal Caribbean Group’s Silversea Cruises brand has an exciting career opportunity for a full-time Lead, Deployment Strategy on the Destination Development Team reporting to the Senior Manager, Deployment and Itinerary Planning.

This position will work onsite in Miami, Florida.

Position Summary:

In this position, you would have tremendous impact on the financial performance of the brand through the development of our strategic ship deployment while enhancing and optimizing all the detailed itineraries. This is done in close collaboration with a very wide range of external and internal partners and stakeholders.  You would make strategic recommendations on new deployment that maximizes potential while ensuring compliance with increasingly restrictive environmental regulations.

This is a critical position which requires considerable expertise and knowledge of our deployment and that of the industry and competitive environment.  Combined with detailed global port knowledge and an understanding of each ship’s key operating particulars, is key to ensuring that our macro and detailed itineraries are operationally viable and optimized for current and long-term planning. 

Deployment and itinerary planning is a 3-dimensional puzzle; many factors must be considered to ensure that each individual itinerary is as appealing, profitable and viable as possible while simultaneously enhancing the strategic positioning of the entire fleet. As a member of this dynamic team, you would develop day-by-day itineraries for certain regions of Silversea Cruises’ deployment product offering.

You would lead special projects and high complexity deployments including World Cruises and Grand Voyages.  To do this, you would partner with the corporate deployment team on several projects including competitive analysis, process improvements, and decarbonization of the fleet and other deployment tools.

You must be dynamic with a well-rounded analytical background, strong insights, proactive mentality with an eagerness to learn.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Analyze itinerary performance metrics, revenue data, and market trends to identify opportunities for revenue growth and cost savings.
• Create new business processes and roadmaps needed to achieve deployment and itinerary planning goals and increase efficiency.
• Continuously evaluate and optimize itineraries based on market trends, guest feedback, and operational considerations.
• Research new destinations and itinerary options which support our brand specific strategic plans and utilize market research and guest feedback to maximize both market value and guest experience.
• Proactively drive and enhance contingency planning for geo-political events impacting both open deployment and new deployment.  Responsiveness and creative solutions are instrumental to ensure that we are ahead of the competition and ready to implement changes when desired by each brand.
• Liaise across most areas of the company including Corporate Deployment, Port Operations, Guest Port Services, Destination Development, Shore Excursion, Hotel / Nautical Operations, Global Marine Operations, Government Relations, Revenue Management, Revenue Planning, Onboard Revenue, Sales, Marketing, International, Newbuild, Ship Executive Committees, Charter Sales, ESG, Supply Chain, Global Security, Finance, and other teams on the strategic development and execution of each brand deployment.
• Provide regular competitive update on industry deployment including strategic implications.
• Ensure all itineraries comply with regional and global CII (Carbon Intensity Indicator) decarbonization and other environmental regulations. Create new itineraries which maximize appeal and profitability while reducing costs including biofuel and carbon taxes.  This is imperative for extending the useful life and right to operate of our older hardware despite escalating and nebulous regulatory environment.
• Manage itinerary changes required to solve berthing and other conflicts. Investigate solutions and collaborate directly with impacted ports and internal teams to analyze and implement optimal alternatives with least guest and cost impact which is still compliant with decarbonization goals.
• Schedule and lead operations and itinerary change meeting with key operations areas and guest communications to give visibility and solicit feedback for open items of any issues impacting deployment.
• Represent the Deployment and Itinerary Planning Team at various internal sales and other leadership conferences shore-side and shipboard

Qualifications, Knowledge and Skills:

• Bachelor’s degree (B.S.) or (BBA.) from a four-year college or university is required. MBA or equivalent desired.
• Minimum of 5 years of professional experience
• 3+ years of itinerary planning experience required.
• Cruise industry knowledge and experience required.
• Port and Destination knowledge required.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills to prepare and present to internal and external audiences.
• Ability to think critically with strong decision making / analytical skills, judgment and aptitude for problem solving and able to multi-task.
• Ability to lead and motivate a team of professional staff.
• Strong interpersonal skills with proven ability to collaborate and lead cross functional teams.
• Expertise with deployment and itinerary tools including Odysseus, PRIME, Brenock IMS, ISAAC and NIY calculations.
• Strong skills in Excel, PowerPoint, Word and Smartsheets.
• Familiarity with Deployment, Revenue and Energy MGT dashboards and Hyperion reporting.
• Knowledge of the impact of our itineraries upon each area and be knowledgeable of issues such as:
  • Market Demand and Sourcing Expectations
  • Immigration, Customs and Other Governmental Regulations
  • Port Constraints, Commitments, Incentives and Long-term Relationships
  • Hotel, Marine and Supply Chain Logistics
  • Fuel supply & itinerary consumption.
  • Global safety & security.
  • Familiarization with global IMO and regional environmental regulations including CII, EEXI and NOx Tier levels.
• Ability and willingness to travel to various industry and trade conferences as required.

We know there's a lot to consider. As you go through the application process, our recruiters will be glad to provide guidance, and more relevant details to answer any additional questions. Thank you again for your interest in Royal Caribbean Group. We'll hope to see you onboard soon!

It is the policy of the Company to ensure equal employment and promotion opportunity to qualified candidates without discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, sexuality, gender identity or expression, marital status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Royal Caribbean Group and each of its subsidiaries prohibit and will not tolerate discrimination or harassment.

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