Silversea targets city slickers

 
Luxury cruise Line Silversea is targeting rich, young city slickers as it looks to maintain its recent 20% annual growth in UK passengers.

Speaking in London at the suitably hip boutique Hoxton Hotel, worldwide sales and marketing vice president David Morris said he was “amazed” by the number of wealthy 40somethings in the City and identified the potential to persuade them to take a Silversea cruise.

“Only in the UK is there an established market for exclusive resorts around the world and it is our job to position our product as a floating exclusive resort,” he said.

“With top European resort hotels charging €900 a night, we know we can offer better value.”

UK managing director Trudy Redfern pointed out that the average ticket price paid by passengers on the line’s 126-day world cruise this year was a mere $74,000 – the equivalent of less than €500 a day.

Half the passengers took the full cruise and 20% were from the UK.

Silversea is now attracting nearly half its passengers from outside North America – a major shift from its historical one-third non-American share.

Although Morris could not yet confirm the proposed 2009 delivery date for the first of possibly two new Silversea ships, he did reveal that there would be major design changes compared with the existing ships.

“There will be a much larger spa and more alternative restaurants as these are seen as key features of any exclusive resort and we are also changing our approach to entertainment. 

“On our current ships, the showlounge takes up a third of the public space but spends much of the cruise under-utilised. On the new ship, there will be a smaller multi-functional theatre with several other smaller rooms which can be used for different kinds of shows and events.”

He also said the luxury cruise sector was enjoying one of its most profitable periods with high load factors and yields but acknowledged that the extra capacity coming on stream for Seabourn and Oceania as well as Silversea meant that there was an urgent need to attract new passengers.

“That is why we have deliberately repositioned the brand through partnerships with the likes of Conde Nast Traveler to appeal to younger wealthy people who have previously not considered cruising.

“This year, the average age on our Mediterranean cruises has dropped to the early 40s while there were 12 couples on the world cruise who had never cruised before so it appears to be paying off.”

By Tony Peisley
 

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