AmaWaterways has started pairing its river cruises with ocean voyages, packaged through Australian wholesalers, to offer new ways to explore Europe.
Gary Murphy, Vice President of Sales and Co-Owner of the luxury cruise operator said the strategy of river and ocean itineraries has been driven primarily by the Australian market, with the Canadian market now catching on.
“Everyone focuses on the ‘two week-ers’ for the Aussie market,” Murphy told LATTEat Virtuoso Travel Week, “but not everyone wants a two-week river cruise.”
“We’ve lined up with ocean liners such as Azamara which is turning a ship in Bordeaux in 2025,” he explained in our 1-on-1 speed-date interview. “We resell to the wholesalers in Australia and they are packaging Barcelona-Bordeaux on an ocean ship, that dovetails with a seven night AMA river cruise… and its getting traction.”
Subscribe to LATTE Cruise’s free eNewsletter to keep up to date with everything in the luxury cruise space.Murphy is optimistic of further more alignments with other ocean cruise brands. Another scenario is pairing AmaWaterways’ river voyages with land tour operators.
“With the introduction of Colombia in 2025 with two brand new ships, there’s the potential to work with an adventure company that has trips to Cartagena, such as G Adventures, to see if we can line up dates and go down to the wholesalers to package up another style of combination,” he said.
Referring to the Australian traveller, Murphy said “You guys like to go for longer travel and we now have 11 two-week itineraries which is new for us, and the catalyst is the Aussie market.”
Until launching its Australian office earlier this year, AmaWaterways’ itineraries were sold through APT. Murphy said that APT was focused wholly on “Amsterdam-Budapest, Amsterdam-Budapest, Amsterdam-Budapest.”
“Now we have the whole world to sell but I have to find ways to attract the Aussie market and lengthen the experience, and we’ve never done that before,” Murphy said, telling LATTE that sales out of Australia are improving.
“Every week is better than the previous. We’re very happy with the numbers,” he said, noting that bookings from Australia are “pacing much faster than the UK office when it opened around 10 years ago.”
“We’re still finding our legs but the team’s doing really well.”
Murphy said he was also excited to see how the ANZ market would respond to the newly launched seven-night ‘Best of the Danube’ itinerary which will debut in 2025 and continue into 2026 with a total of 29 departures. That program will operate roundtrip from Budapest and is the brainchild of AmaWaterways’ Co-Founder and President, Rudi Schreiner.
AmaWaterways has eight new ships in the works, including AmaMagdalena and AmaMelodia which will enter service in Colombia next year, and AmaMaya on the Mekong – a sister-ship to AmaDara.
Murphy also confirmed plans for a sister-ship to AmaMagna – the double-width river cruiser that sails wholly on the Danube – are continuing at pace. Though not to be known as AmaMagna II, engineering work has been finalised for the vessel which will have a capacity of 194 passengers. He said that the new version will complement AmaMagna as its seven- and 14-night itineraries “always sell out”.
AmaWaterways’ second extra-wide river ship is slated to launch in 2027.
Murphy added that further fleet announcements were imminent for the Virtuoso preferred partner
LATTE participated at Virtuoso Travel Week as a guest of Virtuoso.
