Sam’s Club, a subsidiary of Walmart, is venturing into the cruise industry through a collaboration with Boundless Labs, a company specialising in cruise-booking technology that has been operating for five years. This initiative is part of the relaunch of Sam’s Club Travel, featuring a newly developed cruise-booking platform.
The cruise industry has traditionally relied on offline bookings facilitated by human agents. This is largely due to the complexity involved in the booking process, which includes numerous options for cabins, meal plans, travel to ports of departure, hotel arrangements, and excursions on shore. Despite these challenges, Boundless Labs has reported that over 90% of the cruise bookings it processes, for clients such as Kayak and PerkSpot, are completed online.
Through the new platform, Sam’s Club is offering curated itineraries, sailings, and destination options, aiming to simplify the booking process for customers and encourage a shift towards online bookings in a sector historically dominated by offline transactions.
Reporting based on coverage first published by skift.com.