Recommend November 2011 - (Page 20)

RIvER cRUISE product expands even more for 2012 continued from page 18 The Viking Rurik offers itineraries through Russia. “The booking on the Mekong is going incredibly well. Within just eight weeks of launching this new program to the market, we’re already about 50 percent sold,” says an enthusiastic Guy Young, president of Uniworld. “We’re almost completely sold out from January through March and we aren’t actually operating in August and then picking up in September. Sales have been much stronger than we anticipated. And really based on the extremely strong sales and how quickly it’s sold with us not being in the market that long, we have made the decision to launch a second ship on the Mekong in 2013, so we can double our inventory and we’ve already signed a contract for that.” Uniworld now has 10 company-owned ships in Europe and one leased ship on the Douro in Portugal. But because they have already launched three new ships in Europe in 2011, they don’t have any new ships coming for 2012. Still, Young adds, “We are doing three total refurbishments—the River Countess, the River Duchess and the River Royale for 2012. We also launched a refurbished ship in Russia and it’s doing very well.” Young says he thinks the river cruise segment is growing so tremendously because the feedback from the Europe product is so “fantastic,” driving demand for new product and destinations. “I think they’re still looking for us to come up with new destinations and I also think there’s a general appetite for travel to Asia, so I think with all of that combined, we are making a very successful program and we’ve been very pleas20 november 2011 antly surprised. We thought it would go well but it’s done a lot better than expected.”. He’s equally surprised at how demand for river cruising overall has grown and expanded over the years, virtually forcing companies to increase their inventories to meet that demand, a factor that he’s more than happy to deal with and credits the river cruise industry as a whole for driving that demand. “I’ve been to a lot of conferences over the last four or five weeks and frankly I’m just amazed at the amount of interest there is in river cruising. I mean as a segment, we’ve more than doubled in size over the last three or four years and it really is a fantastic way to see a destination and the customer feedback is just incredible,” Young says. “And I think all the river cruise companies probably spend a disproportionate amount of time and energy in marketing. All of us really are helping to drive the interest in river cruising and it’s getting to the point where agents understand that it’s working really very well.” viking river cruises Viking River Cruises has probably the most ambitious plans for 2012, building six new ships—the much-vaunted long ships—and a major refurbishment on one of its ships in Russia, a destination they began operations in and where they’re doing some major promotions now. continued on page 22 recommend.com http://www.recommend.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recommend November 2011

Editor's Notes/Agent Speak
Hotel Desk: RockResorts
Tour Talk: International Expeditions
River Cruise Product Expands Even More for 2012
Hot (or Cool) Toronto is Staid No More
Timeless Boston
South Africa Always Steals the Limelight
BVI: Beauty on the Water
Private Islands Sizzle
Barcelona Will Leave You Beaming
Unspoiled Myanmar is Open for Business
The Lowdown on South America's Capital Highs
Riviera Nayarit in the Pink
The Three Faces of Baja Sur

Recommend November 2011