Celebrity launches free image library to boost inclusivity

The line’s All-Inclusive Photo Project (AIPP) features pictures of “under-represented” travellers captured by a collective of award-winning photographers and filmmakers – including Annie Leibovitz.

Speaking exclusively to TTG, Jo Rzymowska, Celebrity’s vice-president and managing director EMEA, said it was vital the campaign “showed diversity from both sides of the lens”.

For the project, portrait photographer Leibovitz is joined by Giles Duley, an English documentary photographer and disability campaigner who became a triple amputee when injured while working in conflict zones; Naima Green, a black, queer New York-based photographer and Jarrad Seng, an Australia-based photographer, filmmaker and creative director of Malaysian-Chinese descent. 

Around 90 images are currently available via the collection, claimed by Celebrity to be “the world’s first open-source travel image library”, and more will be added as the initiative continues. 

Rzymowska said firms from across the travel sector – including rival cruise lines – were welcome to use the pictures free of charge.

“There’s no competition in diversity and inclusion and it’s so important we work together to make that change,” she told TTG.

"The real power of this project is that it’s open source. No royalties whatsoever, we just ask for photographer to be credited and companies to use #AllIncluisvePhotoProject when sharing on social.”

Celebrity will also launch the AIPP collection as a dedicated brand advertising campaign early next month.

Consumers can visit celebritycruises.com/PhotoProject, while firms interested in accessing the library can visit allinclusivephotoproject.com

The line said it was committed to “educating and empowering" travel agents and had made AIPP images free to access through its Celebrity Central trade portal and promoted via the Celebrity Cruises’ UK Travel Agents Facebook page.

Agents can also access a dedicated LGBT+ toolkit on Celebrity Central and a diversity and inclusion-focused training module on the Celebrity Passport e-learning platform.

Celebrity’s AIPP follows research of 7,000 consumers across the US, UK, Ireland and Australia last year, with nearly two thirds (63%) of those surveyed agreeing the travel industry should have a responsibility to showcase more diversity within its imagery.

‘Challenging the meaning of all-inclusive’

This sentiment was felt most strongly by those from the black community (74%), the LGBT+ community (73%) and those with a disability (73%) – which was also the group seen as “most under-represented” demographic within the travel sector (62%). 

Celebrity’s president and chief executive, Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, said the line had “set out to challenge” the use of the term all-inclusive and its meaning within the travel industry.

“What Annie and all of the talented artists involved in this project have captured so beautifully is that for vacations to really live up to the marketing moniker ‘all-inclusive’, then they should start by using images that are inclusive of all, not just a few,” said Lutoff-Perlo.

“We want our marketing – as with everything we do as a cruise line – to represent how the world looks, and what we experience on our ships daily, as guests and crew from all walks of life work and play together to create a really special onboard environment.”