Dealchecker to launch cruise deals service

Deals publisher dealchecker.co.uk plans to create a specialist cruise deals publishing service following the redevelopment of cruiselinefans.com.

Dealchecker acquired cruiselinefans forum last October and has completely overhauled the service in recent months.

The site, which already has more than 24,000 members, now provides users with additional functionality including the ability to rate and review cruises and detailed information and images on 440 ships.

Dealchecker managing director Alex Saint said cruiselinefans represented a massive opportunity for the company commercially.

“There are fantastic compound growth factors in terms of cruise being one of the growth sectors, usage of online for cruises is one of the fastest growing as well and advertising opportunities for cruise operators are relatively limited compared with something like flights.”

The plan is to aggressively increase the number of members in the next couple of months and develop a newsletter with hand-picked cruise deals and discussions threads for subscribers.

Of the total members about 75% are from the US and the remainder predominantly from the UK.

Saint said the company would use the existing dealchecker subscriber base of more than 800,000 as well as social media, online display and pay-per-click advertising to promote cruiselinefans.

The cruise deals newsletter will be ready by the end of September with a deals engine to be added in the first quarter of next year.

“On the site we have structured all the information around the ships so we can drive consumers to those and publish deals around them. It’s exposing opportunities around the information.”

Saint added that all of the members on cruiselinefans are active forum contributors unlike many social networking sites.