OCEANIA Cruises is known for its ‘Finest Cuisine at Sea’ tag line, however this will be one of four brand pillars the line anchors around over the coming years. Chief Commercial Officer Nathan Hickman, speaking on last week’s christening voyage of the new Oceania Allura (pictured) revealed three other new...
OCEANIA Cruises is known for its ‘Finest Cuisine at Sea’ tag line, however this will be one of four brand pillars the line anchors around over the coming years.
Chief Commercial Officer Nathan Hickman, speaking on last week’s christening voyage of the new Oceania Allura (pictured) revealed three other new brand pillars, including: “immersive destinations”, “intimate, luxurious ships”, “and “genuine hospitality”, to add to its culinary offering.
These four brand pillars have informed the design of the line’s upcoming ship Oceania Sonata (CW yesterday), which will be the largest vessel it has ever built, in both tonnage and capacity.
This allows Oceania to dedicate more space to its public areas and amenities – a key tenet to encouraging passengers from other cruise lines to graduate to its offering.
“For many of our guests, when someone comes to ocean cruises, it’s not their first cruise – they’re experienced cruisers, and a lot of times, they’re stepping up from a contemporary or premium line,” he explained.
“What we’ve learned is they don’t want to trade off, they want to upgrade; they don’t want to have less dining experiences, they don’t want to have less enrichment opportunities.”
Oceania will ensure this by adding two new culinary experiences to Sonata, in addition to the dozens of venues Allura features, with no restaurants being removed.
The profile of venues will also change, Hickman revealed, to offer guests more variety and more styles of dining, particularly on longer cruises.
“After 10, 14, 21 days, six months, there are only so many multi-course dinners you can have in succession…we’ve found our casual dining, our more relaxed dining, to be becoming more and more popular,” Hickman explained. MS
