Tag Archives: Celebrity Cruises

RCCL presidents tackle over-tourism, luxury, female leadership

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Editor in chief Arnie Weissmann, far left, and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. CEO Richard Fain, far right, moderated a panel of RCCL presidents, seated: Mark Conroy of Silversea, Lisa Lutoff-Perlo of Celebrity and Larry PImentel of Azamara.

Editor in chief Arnie Weissmann, far left, and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. CEO Richard Fain, far right, moderated a panel of RCCL presidents, seated: Mark Conroy of Silversea, Lisa Lutoff-Perlo of Celebrity and Larry PImentel of Azamara.

FORT LAUDERDALE — Cruise line presidents from Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. brands took on the subject of over-tourism, the evolution of luxury cruising and female leadership during a panel at CruiseWorld.

Regarding over-tourism, they said that in the general travel industry, cruise lines are a small part of the phenomenon — but a highly visible one.

“Our reality is, perception rules,” said Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, president of Celebrity Cruises. “There are these big white ships pulling in and it’s a lot of people at once.”

Larry Pimentel, president of Azamara, said that 25 years ago there were only 1.4 million outbound travellers from China; today there are 150 million. “India is also coming,” he said. “By no means is this only a cruise issue; it is an industry issue.”

And Mark Conroy, managing director of the Americas, for Silversea Cruises, said that overreacting to over-tourism could be overly damaging to some local residents in destinations such as Venice.

“Tourism is the largest employer in the world overall,” Conroy said. You can’t just shut it down. If you banned all tourism into Venice, there’d be a big unemployment problem there.”

Silversea redefining expedition cruising

Conroy said that 10 years ago when he was working for a rival company he thought that Silversea chairman Manfredi Lefebvre was crazy to bolt an expedition arm onto a luxury brand.

“I thought he’d lost his mind until I saw the per diems from the expedition business,” Conroy said.

Silversea, as a top-tier luxury brand, also brought a different concept to what was then more of a rustic product. At that time, Conroy recalled, “You had to sacrifice your lifestyle to go on an expedition.”

Image result for silver wind"

But when Silversea renovated its two oldest ships, the Silver Cloud and Silver Wind, it decided to transform them into expedition vessels but with the space and amenities of a luxury ship.

Conroy said that one of the unintended consequences was that the larger ship had faster speeds than most expedition ships.

“We can cross the Drake Passage [to Antarctica] in 28 hours instead of two days,” Conroy said

In defining the “luxury” appeal of his Azamara brand, Pimentel said that value plays a bigger part than in traditional luxury brands. As a department store, Azamara would compare to Nordstrom, he said.

“We’re not Saks Fifth Avenue.” As a car, we would be more like a Lexus.”

A woman in charge

The panel followed the CEO Conversation between Royal Caribbean Chairman Ltd. chairman and CEO Richard Fain and editor in chief Arnie Weissmann, and Fain returned to the stage to co-moderate the panel of presidents.

Lutoff-Perlo, who was named the president of Celebrity five years ago, and Fain asked her what was is like to be one of the few women to run a cruise line. She said at first, she took it for granted.

“When I was appointed I didn’t think about my gender at all,” she said. “But then when I was appointed, to the rest of the world apparently it is a really big deal.

“The great part is the part I can do to pay it forward” to other females in the industry, she said. 

Royal Caribbean and Azamara ‘considering’ moving UK teams to the US

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Royal Caribbean Cruises is “considering” moving some of Royal Caribbean International and Azamara’s UK non-sales departments to the US.

The company is proposing splitting some staff into separate teams for those two brands so they can “laser focus” on their passengers and destinations.

The proposed shake-up focuses predominantly on markets where Royal Caribbean, Azamara and Celebrity Cruises operate collectively on a “tri-branded basis”.

Royal said this will have “no impact” on sales teams in the UK and Ireland, which are already “single-branded”.

A Royal Caribbean Cruises spokesperson said: “Under the proposal, we are considering relocating some non-sales UK departments from Royal Caribbean International and Azamara to Miami.”

More: Anthem of the Seas to return to Southampton in 2021

 Royal Caribbean names new Oasis-class vessel

Celebrity Cruises’ non-sales staff in the UK and Ireland are not affected by the proposal.

“The relationships we hold with our trade partners in the UK and Ireland are critical for our present and future success and the proposed changes will bring consumer insights benefits to the market going forward,” the spokesperson added.

A new era of cruise tonnage replaces an old one

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Celebrity Cruises' Xpedition, which has the look of its time: More portholes than private balconies, for example.

Celebrity Cruises’ Xpedition, which has the look of its time: More portholes than private balconies, for example. Photo Credit: Daniel Romagosa/Celebrity Cruises
by Tom Stieghorst
Back when I first started writing about cruises, in the mid-1980s, one of the things that really excited me about the job was the modern new cruise ships being built in places like Finland and France.
They were getting bigger, fancier, with terrific new amenities and style. It was a pleasure to be able to describe them to readers who at that time probably didn’t know what the new ships were all about.
But there were other ships that I toured, older tonnage that still had a niche in the industry. I remember a lot of Greek ships that were way past their prime; Scandinavian car ferries converted to cruise duty; and ocean liners that were years out of date.
I was reminded of those days recently while touring Celebrity Cruises’ Celebrity Flora, which is nearing completion at a shipyard in Rotterdam. It is the first ship purpose-built for the Galapagos Islands and looks like it will be a dream to sail.
The Flora is a new standard for an area of the globe that has been getting by on older tonnage for a long time. Galapagos-based ships include Celebrity’s own Celebrity Xpedition, which was built in 2001 for Sun Bay Cruises and acquired by Celebrity in 2004 when it began cruising there.
The Xpedition has the classic look of ships of its era: more portholes than balconies, for example. It carries 96 passengers compared to 100 for the Celebrity Flora, but at 2,842 gross tons, it is only half the size of the 5,739 gross-ton Flora.
A rendering of the Celebrity Flora, an example of the new standard in cruising, which will replace the Xpedition in the Galapagos.
A rendering of the Celebrity Flora, an example of the new standard in cruising, which will replace the Xpedition in the Galapagos.
To be sure, seeing the wildlife in the Galapagos is the major focus of any cruise there; the hardware is secondary. But if you can go in style, comfort and, indeed, luxury, why not?
One of Celebrity’s quasi-competitors in the Ecuadoran islands is going through a similar transition with its product. Next year Silversea Cruises will introduce the Silver Origin in the Galapagos and retire the Silver Galapagos, which was once part of the original, 1990s-era, Renaissance Cruises fleet of 100-passenger ships.
These new ships are going to raise the bar for the other licensed vessels, many of them small, that offer cruises in the Galapagos — much the same way that the Carnival Fantasy and Sovereign of the Seas prompted some changes for the Chandris family when it was sailing classic ships like the Britanis out of Florida. John Chandris eventually concluded that was a hopeless strategy, and he started Celebrity Cruises to focus on newly built ships such as the Celebrity Horizon. Today, Celebrity survives and thrives as a division of Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., which bought it in 1997.
Silversea Cruises has also joined the RCCL stable, by virtue of a sale of a 67% interest last year. One of the first things RCCL management did after the purchase was to announce a new Silversea ship for the Galapagos.
The two RCCL ships are going to set a new benchmark for cruising in the Galapagos and may spell the end for some of the less contemporary vessels in that market.