Hawkes & Kwortnik
Revenue Impact Partners

Your most consequential decisions shouldn't be your least evidence-based.

We work with cruise and hospitality leadership teams to close the gap between what frontier research shows and how commercial decisions actually get made.

Defensible commercial decisions that build customer equity.
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Ask the leadership team whether the commercial decisions they made last month built or eroded the asset that will determine their valuation in five years. The room goes quiet.
The Customer Equity Architecture · Hawkes & Kwortnik
The Thesis

Every department hits its KPI.
The enterprise leaves money on the table.

The commercial decisions that determine enterprise value are made on separate scoreboards with no shared definition of a valuable guest.

4%+

Pricing leaves money on the table

Segmentation-based pricing lifts fare revenue over undifferentiated approaches. On a $2B ticket line, that’s $80M annually. Left on the table by pricing that reflects what’s being booked, not who’s booking it.

Sun, Kwortnik & Gauri, Intl. Journal of Hospitality Management
15–30%

Promotions subsidize existing demand

A meaningful share of promotional spend generates no incremental bookings. Guests learn the cadence and time their purchases. The company discounts demand it would have captured anyway.

Sun, Kwortnik & Gauri, 2020; Kwortnik & Ross, 2007
8–15%

Silos underperform integrated approaches

Pricing acquires a guest the portfolio model would flag as low-value. That guest gets the same loyalty benefits as a high-value repeat. No one made a bad decision. The system produced a bad outcome.

Ng & Kwortnik, Case Research Journal; Rust, Lemon & Zeithaml, Journal of Marketing
What We Work On

Three Levers, One System

Being full is not the same as being full with pricing power. The portfolio composition is the difference. These three levers compound when coordinated. In silos, they erode each other.

01
Guest Portfolio

Know which guests build value and which just fill cabins

Until the team shares a portfolio view of guest value, every other commercial decision is built on assumption. Customer equity predicts enterprise value. Occupancy and NPS do not.

Diagnostic
Can your team identify who your most valuable guests are, and what makes them valuable?
02
Commercial Discipline

Stop leaving money on the table between departments

Pricing discounts to hit occupancy. The mix shifts toward price-sensitive buyers. Onboard spending drops. Loyalty weakens. Every function met its KPI. The enterprise left real money on the table.

Diagnostic
Ask three VPs what your most profitable guest looks like. Would they agree?
03
Experience Design

Design the moments that drive rebooking

Where you place the peak moment in a guest journey changes how the entire experience is remembered. Two identical sailings can produce different rebooking rates based on sequence alone.

Diagnostic
Are your highest-margin experiences timed for when guests are most receptive, or for operational convenience?
Your Advisory Team

Principals on every engagement

We combine cruise operating experience with frontier academic research. No junior staff. No subcontractors. The people you meet are the people who do the work.

Ethan Hawkes
The Operating Side

Ethan Hawkes

VP Onboard Revenue, MSC Cruises$500M+ onboard revenue portfolio across global fleet
Associate Partner, McKinsey & CompanyNearly a decade advising hotel and cruise clients across three continents
CEO & Co-Founder, PlacePassTravel experiences marketplace, $500M+ gross bookings, acquired by Hopper
Cornell Hotel School · Johnson MBA
Dr. Rob Kwortnik
The Research Side

Dr. Rob Kwortnik

Associate Professor, Cornell Nolan SchoolServices marketing, experience design, customer value
30+ peer-reviewed publicationsPOMS Most Influential Paper; pricing, loyalty, experience
Industry consultingNorwegian, Celebrity, CLIA, Marriott
10x Teacher of the Year · Recognized cruise industry expert
How We Work

From the right question to a defensible answer

01

Find the question

A focused conversation to identify the commercial question that would create the most clarity for your team. Not a sales process. A diagnostic one.

02

Build the evidence

4–8 weeks working alongside your team. Your data meets our research. We build an evidence-based view of what’s working, what’s leaking, and where the highest-impact opportunities are.

03

Operationalize the thinking

Assumptions are auditable. Recommendations are defensible. Your team owns the analysis, and we stay close as the questions evolve and the commercial environment shifts.

The next step is a conversation.

No proposal required. Just a focused conversation about where better evidence would create the most clarity for your team.

Ethan Hawkes ethan@hawkesandkwortnik.com
Rob Kwortnik rob@hawkesandkwortnik.com
Hawkes & Kwortnik
Defensible commercial decisions that build customer equity.
Rigorous thinking. Real-world instinct. Genuine care.