The cruise industry has received a boost with a cruise-specific mobile solution designed to assess the English language skills of applicants looking to work in the cruise industry.
Singapore-based Boost, a mobile training solutions provider for the hospitality industry, and CTI Group Worldwide Services, Inc. (CTI Group), a pioneer in the cruise recruitment industry together developed the solution. CrewHire will be used to pre-screen all cruise line applicants, testing for suitability and language proficiency.
“Currently there are very few good options for cruise lines when it comes 
to screening for language ability, the few technological solutions out there are not adequate especially at scale and it is expensive and slow to test manually,” said Boost’s CEO Allan Taylor (pictured) in an interview with Web in Travel.
Taylor said although cruise industry has a number of differences to the wider hotel industry, it also has a number of similarities.
“There was a degree of customisation and we have incorporated deck and engineering terminology into the assessment and test feature. We worked very closely with CTI Group in this regard, they are a pioneer in the cruise recruitment industry placing over 250,000 crew in the world’s leading cruise lines,” added Taylor.
The app is expected to have a good response and take-up especially with the growing millennial workforce. Taylor said the majority of cruise crews tend to be younger and hence are more used to reading from a screen than from a book.
“This app is a real game-changer given the way the millennial generation uses their smartphone and tablets. This technology will allow us to reach more potential crew and provide an even higher level of relevant assessment, ensuring we are able to select and place cruise line employees who possess real potential. Importantly, due to the mobile nature of CrewHire, we are able to reach many more potential applicants, significantly widening the net in an efficient and cost-effective way. We will be testing applicants on department-specific phrases so our cruise line clients will have a good understanding of their employees’ knowledge and abilities,” said CTI Group CEO Robert Upchurch.
Taylor touted Boosts’ hospitality training solution as having direct impact on customer service and hence, bottom lines. He expects the same to happen within the cruise trade.
“Many of our [hospitality] clients note the increased confidence that their employees show once they start improving their language abilities and skills and this translates directly into better guest service. I think many of these benefits can be translated to the cruise industry, as cruise line employees share many of the same pain points. The increasingly international nature of the cruise guest means that languages are becoming more important, yet traditional classroom-based learning is not appropriate due to space, time and cost reasons, said Taylor.
