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CroisiEurope announces major expansion in Africa
River cruise operator CroisiEurope is to add a second ship to its fleet in Africa in early 2020 and it is planning up to three more.
The 16-guest Zimbabwean Dream will be a sister ship to the African Dream, sailing on Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe.
The company is planning to start promoting the second Africa ship early next year. It will join the fleet in March 2020.
E-commerce and sales director Lucas Schmitter said CroisiEurope is already planning to add a third ship in Africa, at the request of a destination management company. "There is so much demand and it is such a big lake that we could have 10 ships sailing there," he said. "We won’t go that big, but we may have four or five ships."
CroisiEurope has a total fleet of 55 ships, sailing mainly on the Rhine and the Danube but also on the Seine, The Rhone, the Tisza in Hungary, Guadalquivir in Spain, the Douro in Portugal, the Dordogne and the Garonne in Bordeaux and the Mekong in Vietnam. It has previously announced it will add a sixth ship on the Douro in 2019.
In France, the company operates a fleet of 12-cabin ‘hotel barges’, sailing through canals in Alsace, Burgundy, Champagne, Provence and Paris.
Speaking from CroisiEurope’s Renoir during the CLIA River Cruise conference in Paris, international sales director Michelle Graham said overall the company’s revenue is up 10% this year and revenue from the UK is up 25%.
"The UK market is doing very well, we are expanding our calls centre," added UK sales director John Fair. "The trade are very important to us, bookings are up 28% so far this year, we’re working with all the consortia and we want to get as many agents as possible to see the ships."
Schmitter said the company has ‘some big news’ up its sleeve, to announce later this year or early next. "In 2021 we will have something big, something totally different."
Some 200 agents attending the eighth annual CLIA River Cruise conference, held in Paris for the first time, heard that some 210,000 Britons took river cruises last year. Since then, a further 17 river cruise vessels have been added around the world and a further 18 are currently under construction for 2019.
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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