Seabourn will look to amplify awareness of its Pacific expedition program aboard Seabourn Pursuit, as demand for programming before and after the region enjoys near-capacity volumes.
Ryan Taibel, Vice President, Sales & Partnerships, Carnival Australia (which includes overseeing ultra-luxury cruise brand Seabourn), says there remains an opportunity to push expedition destinations such as Micronesia and the south-western Pacific to the local market.
Having completed its inaugural Antarctic season a few weeks ago, Seabourn Pursuit will soon track in a westerly direction across the Pacific via French Polynesia, Fiji, Vanuatu, Guam and Papua New Guinea bound for the Kimberley in July.
Subscribe to LATTE Cruise’s free eNewsletter to keep up to date with everything in the luxury cruise space.Speaking with LATTE at the recent Virtuoso AU/NZ Forum in Bangkok, Taibel said Seabourn has had great success with the deployment of Seabourn Pursuit to the White Continent, and that the upcoming inaugural Kimberley season was also going to be hot. Six of the eight Kimberley sailings between Darwin and Broome are sold out, with only a limited number of cabins available on remaining dates.
The apparent success of those core destinations – Antarctica and the Kimberley – have, however, created opportunities in the Pacific program for renewed attention.
“We’ve focused all our efforts on promoting expedition, on fire and ice in the Kimberley and Antarctica. That’s what we spent the bulk of our time doing,” he said.
“The reality is these itineraries are essentially formed based on the way the ship travels to the destinations, from South America to Australia.”
“Seabourn Pursuit will sail through some incredible parts of the South Pacific that allow us to showcase our expedition experience in a way that people have never imagined.”
“Visiting local villages, seeing how they live which may be very primitive, combined with scuba diving, snorkelling, huge varieties of coral and fish.”
“It’s expedition, but it’s a different expedition to what we’ve been marketing until now.”
Part of Seabourn’s strategy to increase awareness of its unique Pacific expedition programming will be a travel advisor famil from Guam to Honiara, Papua New Guinea in May 2024, enabling luxury cruise specialists the chance to immerse themselves in the destination and experience the hardware and service aboard Seabourn Pursuit.
Meanwhile, Taibel referred to the partnership with Virtuoso as “foundational” to the luxury cruise line, adding this year’s performance by members in Australia and New Zealand had been “outstanding.”
“Virtuoso is a very important part of our distribution,” he added.
