MSC World America’s retail offering stretches 1,000 sqm.

As cruise operators focus on extracting more value from time spent on board, retail is increasingly being built around curated journeys, exclusive product access and experiential activations designed to shape guest purchasing behaviour. Holly Motion examines the strategies driving onboard retail change.

When it comes to driving conversion at sea, cruise retailers are always on the hunt for fresh and effective ways to maximise one of the sector’s most valuable assets: extended guest time on board. Right now, we are seeing stakeholders move beyond traditional transactional models, with retail and engagement programmes being designed around repeat engagement rather than individual purchases. Success is no longer about generating traffic, but about influencing purchasing decisions at multiple points along the journey.

“Cruise retail has a fundamental advantage over almost every other channel,” Claire McLennan, Harding+ Category Director, Fashion & Costume Jewellery, Logo, Desto, Gifting, told us. “Guests aren’t rushing for a flight or squeezing a shop into a lunch break. They’re on holiday, they’re relaxed, and they’re open. That changes everything about how you approach the interaction.”

“One of the unique advantages of cruise retail is the opportunity to engage with guests multiple times throughout their journey,” added MSC Cruises Senior Vice President Onboard Revenues Georg Schmickler. “Our approach is to continuously refresh the experience throughout the voyage through curated events, limited-time activations, product launches and targeted guest invitations. This creates a sense of discovery and exclusivity while maintaining a familiar and comfortable shopping environment.”

In June, Harding+ and Princess Cruises extended their partnership for onboard retail through 2031.

Indeed, where in airports dwell time is measured in minutes, on cruise ships it’s measured in days. “That creates a completely different opportunity for engagement, education and storytelling, explained Cruise & Travel Retail Consultant Suzanne Mahoney, who has worked for the likes of MSC Cruises and Harding+. “Guests can discover a brand, attend an event, interact with crew members, return to learn more and ultimately purchase later in the voyage. The challenge isn’t getting guests to walk past the shop. The challenge is giving them a compelling reason to choose retail over all the other experiences available onboard.”

It follows, then, that rather than supporting a single purchase occasion, assortments must sustain interest over several days, creating reasons for guests to return before they are ready to buy.

Panel session titled ‘The Maritime Marketplace: From Products to Experiences – Driving Conversion at Sea’ at the 2026 TR Consumer Forum in Geneva.

“Airport retail is built around convenience and impulse, a narrow window, a guest with half their mind on a departure board. The high street is habitual and familiar. Cruise is neither,” McLennan explained. “Onboard, guests have days, sometimes weeks. At Harding+ we curate with that dwell time front of mind. I’m thinking about what a guest might discover on day one, return to on day three, and commit to by day five.”

Making retail part of the holiday

Cruise & Travel Retail Consultant Suzanne Mahoney.

With all of this in mind, the shift to experiences makes absolute business sense.

“We’re seeing cruise retail evolve from a transactional environment into a much more experience-led channel,” said Mahoney. “Historically, success often relied on assortment, exclusivity and pricing. Today, the most successful concepts combine product with activation, entertainment and guest engagement. Brands increasingly need to think about how they create reasons for guests to return throughout the voyage rather than simply securing a listing and hoping for the best.

“Part of that evolution is being driven by changing demographics. The average cruise passenger is now 46.7 years old, 35% are under 40 and 67% are Gen X or younger. As the customer base becomes younger and more diverse, we’re seeing growing demand for experiences, interaction, personalisation and retail concepts that feel like part of the holiday itself rather than simply another shop onboard.”

Conversion, however, still depends on creating a compelling reason to buy – and exclusivity remains one of the most effective drivers of action.

“If a guest can easily buy it at home, the conversation becomes much harder,” said McLennan. “The reason to buy it here, now, on this ship – that’s what I’m always working towards.”

That dynamic is most evident in luxury retail, where access, service and personalisation often outweigh price considerations.

Left: Georg Schmickler, Senior Vice President Onboard Revenues, MSC Cruises. Right: Inside the TimeVallée luxury watch multi-brand retail concept onboard MSC World America.

“Our strategy is centred around our guest, and today’s guest increasingly expects personalised experiences, curated product selections and elevated levels of service,” Schmickler said. “This is particularly true within luxury categories such as watches, jewellery, beauty and fashion, where exclusivity and personal attention often play a greater role than price alone.”

Across its fleet, MSC Cruises offers more than 30 leading watch brands, supported by curated retail environments including TimeVallée on its newest ships. Within MSC Yacht Club, private consultations, invitation-only events and tailored product presentations are designed to create a more personalised purchasing environment.

Harding+ has committed to allocating 25% of retail space to experiential and flexible formats because it believes the future of onboard retail is in “creating moments as memorable as the destinations themselves”.

“The activations that work hardest give guests a reason to come back beyond browsing,” McLennan explained. “Personalisation is a strong example. When a guest can have something made or customised onboard, the engagement is completely different in character from a standard retail transaction – it becomes a memory rather than a purchase. We’ve seen this deliver real commercial results: a personalisation mechanic we introduced around engraving drove double-digit sales growth and lifted average basket value and basket quantity across the broader range. That halo effect is what you’re really after.”

Increasingly guest-centric

MSC has found similar success with emotive, guest-centric strategies.

“Today’s consumers increasingly seek memorable experiences rather than simply products,” Schmickler underscored. “As a result, destination-inspired storytelling, immersive brand activations, exclusive launches and curated events have become powerful tools for increasing both engagement and conversion.”

Harding+ recently refitted Majestic Princess for a more modern, intuitive borderless shopping experience.

For categories closely tied to the voyage itself, this emotional connection can outweigh the product itself, McLennan argued. “Those categories live or die on emotional resonance,” she added. “A guest standing in the shop two days after sailing out of Barcelona isn’t just buying a product, they’re buying a piece of the experience they’re having. If the retail offer reflects that, it amplifies the desire to purchase. If it doesn’t, you’ve broken the spell.”

Underpinning many of these strategies is a growing emphasis on guest insight, with retailers using data to personalise interactions, refine product offers and create more relevant experiences across the journey.

“We operate across a wide range of cruise lines and guest demographics – different nationalities, age profiles, spending behaviours, itineraries. That breadth is genuinely stretching, but it’s also where our expertise lies,” McLennan said. “We tailor the offer meaningfully for each partner and itinerary rather than applying a single template, and our insight capabilities mean we’re making those curation decisions based on data, not instinct alone.”

Looking ahead, MSC Cruises expects onboard retail to become more connected with data as a key cog in the machine. “We believe the industry will increasingly move towards a model where physical retail, digital engagement and guest data work seamlessly together to deliver relevant experiences before, during and after the cruise,” Schmickler explained.

For Mahoney, the future lies in creating retail journeys rather than individual transactions.

“The most successful brands and retailers will be those that use the unique characteristics of cruise to create engagement across an entire voyage,” she said. “That might be through events, collectability, personalisation, destination-inspired storytelling or partnerships with other onboard experiences.

“Cruise continues to be one of the fastest-growing sectors in travel retail and the opportunity is significant. The brands that understand how to combine product, activation and execution will be best positioned to benefit from that growth.” «

This feature first appeared in the June 2026 issue of TRBusiness magazine. Click here to read. 

Visit TRConsumerForum.com to find out more about the TR Consumer Forum 2026.

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