Carnival UK hires Premier Inn’s Tempest as top marketer
Carnival UK has hired Premier Inn’s chief marketer Gerard Tempest to fill the newly created chief commercial officer role.
The shake up of Carnival’s management structure will see Tempest (pictured) report to David Dingle, CEO of Carnival UK, and he will be responsible for all commercial and marketing activities for Carnival’s two UK based brands, P&O Cruises and Cunard Line.
The role has been created to add “more firepower” to the commercial team and bring on board greater digital expertise.
Tempest is currently sales and marketing director of Whitbread’s Hotels and Restaurants division where, among other brands, he is responsible for the Premier Inn budget hotel brand. He takes up the new role in December.
Commercial director Nigel Esdale, managing director P&O Cruises Carol Marlow and president and managing director Cunard Line Peter Shanks will report into Tempest in the new structure.
Taking to Marketing Week, Dingle says: “In a world where we continue to continue to grow and expand our business, where the consumer world is faster moving than ever before and we probably have stronger competition than we have ever had before, we need to add more firepower to the team. As CEO, I’m responsible for a wide range of activities and we really need to consolidate all commercial and marketing activities under a single leadership.”
He adds: “The appointment also ensures that those areas are better coordinated than may be the case currently. It will certainly make sure the key strands hold together. There are some particular areas where I need greater expertise than maybe currently exists in the business and one of most important in moving the business forward is our digital strategy.”
Dingle says that Carnival’s brands need to be best in class from a digital sales and marketing point of view and adds that Tempest “understands what an end to end digital customer journey should look like.”
Cruises are one of the growing sectors in the holiday industry. P&O Cruses and Cunard have just introduced a “price promise” to help stabilise pricing reassure potential passengers worried about discounting of packages if they buy their cruise early.
Read a recent interview with Gerard Tempest here.
