This is a very interesting discussion. The question that Radisson management should be trying to solve for is:

How can we move people from repeat to second repeat?

[ASIDE: The probability of sustained usage is much greater once people have gone through "second repeat." Just moving people from trial to repeat is insufficient. As for getting people to trial, that's a different exercise, although I find that the factors that drive repeat to second repeat are largely correlated with what would drive people to trial in the first place, especially through vehicles such as positive word-of-mouth.]

Generally in service industries, "delight factors" (things people don't expect) are drivers of second repeat as opposed to "dissatisfiers" (that would be things people expect but don't add incremental satisfaction, like tires on your car - you would expect a new car to have tires when you buy it but the fact that a new car has tires doesn't necessarily excite you in any way). So why doesn't Radisson just re-allocate its investment to making all cruises all-inclusive? I think we've discussed over and over again over the past few years that this one element would add a tremendous amount of sustained "delight" to the cruise experience. I'd assume that all of the aforementioned perks would be more than equal to going all-inclusive in terms of whatever Radisson would need to "invest." And think of the incremental good will and superior experience that would generate. Let's think of the cruise credit model: people probably spend around $250 per person per 7-day period on drinks outside dinner and cocktail parties. So that seems to level out roughly using Crystal's structure (I didn't read it that closely though). When you consider that the vast majority of Radisson's passengers at any given time are probably repeaters, then it becomes a wash in terms of actual required investment versus opportunity cost. Since Radisson doesn't view alcohol as a profit center, this seems to make additional sense to me.

The next "delight" generating step would be to move to the free Internet at one milestone (maybe 80 days) then to free laundry (maybe at 120 days). I'm just modeling this phasing based on my observations of usage. And then keep the real "reach" milestones like free 7-days cruises per x-hundred days sailed as a distant carrot. I don't think telling people up front that if they sail hundreds of days on a very expensive line to get a 7-day cruise will really register with people considering the move from repeat to second to repeat.

So it all boils down to liquoring people up at the end of the day!