Cruise & Maritime Voyages

Late in 2011, we were asked to reproduce an online booking engine for Cruise & Maritime Voyages (CMV). This was launched in January of 2012. During the first year of the new booking engine, online sales doubled from the previous year. At the time, CMV were a UK-based cruise line with sailing solely from the UK with two ships. They had only been operating for a year when we got involved.

A year after replacing their booking system, we also replaced the marketing website, followed later by a booking management portal.

In the following nine years, we supported their rapid growth, quickly moving to operate in seven countries in total, the main sales office remaining in the UK. 

Over this time, not only did we support growth via the technology we built and launched on behalf of CMV, but we also became their technology consultants, making processes more efficient, enabling expansion in revenue and throughput whilst minimising administrative and manpower costs. 

Unfortunately, CMV were a victim of the 2020 lockdowns. The pandemic came at the worst possible time for CMV - just after a finance deal was agreed to acquire two more ships. 

Up until this point, Castus’ impact had been significant, with every booking and element of shoreside revenue going through a system that had been built bespoke for CMV. The trust between the two companies was solidified, with CMV buying shares in Castus and one of our Directors (Gary Hides) becoming the IT Director of all Shoreside technology for CMV.

Not only did we launch our first custom-built booking engine for CMV UK in January of 2012, but we also launched the CMV USA system 4 months later in May 2012. In 2013, expansion was made in to both Australia and Germany. Only 5 months apart. Australia launching in February and Germany in July. 

In each of these cases we only had a short time scale in which to react - at the most around 2 months. We understand that often in business you have to move fast. We were with CMV on that journey and pulled out all of the stops to move as fast as they needed in order expand quickly and take the opportunities afforded to them.

After we had proved our technical ability, trustworthiness and a reliable positive ROI, CMV asked Castus to take on more and more responsibility with regards to the overall tech stack. One of our Directors, Gary Hides, was asked to join the leadership team at CMV and managed an internal team for CMV, helping reshape much of the IT vision. This resulted in a much more efficient workforce and working practices, enabling scale without huge extra costs.

With the headache of technology being looked after, the senior leaders at CMV were then able to concentrate on the work they had to do in order to grow the business - having confidence they were ably supported for whichever direction or opportunity arose.