New ex-UK cruise operation unveiled
Thursday, 14 Aug, 2009
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A new two ship cruise operation including the Marco Polo is to operate departures from a range of UK ports next year.
The 820-passenger Marco Polo, which has been operating for two summers under the Transocean Tours brand, will return with sailings from London Tilbury.
Cruise & Maritime Services International, UK general sales agents for Transocean Tours since 2006, is extending the presence of Marco Polo in UK in 2010 with a year-round programme of cruises to provide a wider and varied choice of sailings.
As a result, Marco Polo’s Transocean Tours scheduled winter Antarctica 2009-10 programme is being replaced by a new winter programme following an existing 32-night West Indies cruise sailing from Tilbury on October 6.
The ship, which will be positioned as adults only, will start cruising under a new livery on January 2, 2010 with a new ex-UK winter programme featuring the Amazon, Orinoco and West Indies.
This will be followed by a season of Nordic cruises to Scandinavia and the Baltic and Russia, Iceland, the British Isles, the Mediterranean and Canary Islands.
Marco Polo will be joined in April, 2010 by 800-passenger Ocean Countess operating a year round programme of 22 regional sailings from Hull, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Greenock, Liverpool and Plymouth.
The summer season will see Nordic cruises to Scandinavia, the Baltic and Russia, Iceland, the British Isles, the Mediterranean and the Canary Islands.
Prior to delivery, Ocean Countess will undergo a £3 million refurbishment and upgrade.
Both vessels will be marketed under a new brand and trading name called Cruise & Maritime Voyages.
Ocean Countess joins the Cruise & Maritime Voyagesfleet on April 18 under an initial two season charter arrangement from the Greek based Majestic International Cruises Group, also managers of the Ocean Majesty.
As part of the deal, CMS has appointed the Global Maritime Group to supply hotel, marine and entertainment management services, which are also provided for Marco Polo, to ensure product continuity.
The 27,000-passenger capacity summer 2010 programme goes on sale in the last week of August.
Fares lead in at £199 for a three-night weekend spring bank holiday cruise to Amsterdam and Antwerp.
Cruise and Maritime Services director Chris Coates said: “We have finalised a five year time charter agreement with Marco Polo Chartering Company and in 2010 will be working directly with the Piraeus-based Global Maritime Group, the vessel’s existing ship managers, and owners to develop the product on the British market.
“We will continue our unique and successful distribution strategy of marketing the programme via a select group of firmly established British tour operating partners and the retail travel trade.
“While our core market will predominantly be the British sector, we believe the programme will also appeal to the wider North American, Australasian and South African English speaking markets where sales representation announcements will be made shortly”.
He added: “We all collectively believe that despite the significant increase in the larger resort style vessels, the reducing number of smaller, traditional and lower capacity vessels generally operated by the independent and privately owned shipping companies, still have a huge following on the British market.
“We believe this potentially enables us to deliver a more personal and friendly standard of service and our vessels can also visit more remote ports of call and places not always accessible to the larger resort ships.
“We are all of course still mindful of the recessionary pressures facing the British and global economies but believe that our largely grey market sector is more resilient and our strong price positioning will assist us in achieving our targets as the market begins to recover during 2010 and 2011.”
by Phil Davies
Phil Davies
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