DESPITE one well-sold charter preparing to embark later this year, and a recently announced follow-up in 2027 (CW 09 Jan), Ignite Travel Group is not looking to buy a ship and operate cruises on its own.
Ignite’s recently announced second ‘Explorations by Norwegian’ full-year charter, sold through its My Cruises brand, will take over Oceania Cruises’ Oceania Regatta (pictured), with the first voyage to set sail in Sep.
However, this does not mean Ignite is looking to buy the ship outright, the company’s general manager cruise Michael Middleton told CW.
Ignite is content to let the maritime experts handle the operational side of the venture, while My Cruises continues to successfully sell and market the product, he said.
“They’re the experts in running a ship… we’d rather let them take care of that piece, let us take care of the sales, the marketing, and getting the people on the ship.”
“Obviously we’ve had some fantastic conversations and have been able to give a bit of influence as to how we want the product to play out.”
Middleton however did not rule out My Cruises expanding its charter operations further, possibly across more ships, saying “anything’s possible”.
“Nothing’s off the cards, but let’s get [the first two charters] under way first before we start looking at that,” he said.
“The business is all about innovation and this was a really innovative thing for us to do, so it will be great to see where it ends up in the long term.”
Changes made from the first charter to the second include broadening access to the best-selling segments, and improving airlift to embarkation and disembarkation ports.
“The confidence and how well the product resonated with the Australian customer, they’re loving the ability to do multiple sectors,” Middleton said.
“The first 12 segments [of the first charter] are very heavily booked already, which is great.
“Some of those are 90% sold now, which is fantastic, so that’s what’s given us the confidence to go ahead and extend the charter for another year.”
My Cruises is also going to enable guests to continue cruising by allowing them to extend their voyage at a dedicated future cruise desk on board Regatta.
Guests will be able to book more segments and even change their flights with My Cruises consultants while on board.
The first of the charters embarks on 01 Sep. MS