Explora Journeys has made two senior appointments to its executive leadership team. Koray Savas has joined MSC Group’s luxury brand from sister company MSC Cruises as VP Hotel and Alban Gjoka has been promoted to the role of VP Food and Beverage. Both report to Michael Ungerer, CEO, Explora Journeys.
“It has been nearly three months since we launched our first ship EXPLORA I and we are now moving ahead into the next chapter of the growth of our brand,” said CEO, Ungerer.
“Koray and Alban both bring extensive experience and skills to our hotel and food and beverage operations respectively and they will add great value to our current ship at sea as well as to the development of the onboard experience for our upcoming five luxury ships.”
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Savas has worked in the cruise industry for 22 years with the last five at MSC Cruises, most recently at the Company’s headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland where for two years he was a Brand Performance Director (BPD) overseeing the hotel operations and guest experience for the line’s ships based in Asia, the Gulf region and the Mediterranean Sea. He was also a BPD for the line’s world cruises in 2022 marked for the first time two of its ships sailing the globe simultaneously and prior to his move to Geneva, Savas spent three years as VP Hotel Operations Asia, based in Shanghai.
Gjoka joined Explora Journeys at the beginning of 2022 as Senior Lead Culinary Operation from the Apollo Group where he worked for 15 years, most recently as Senior Executive Chef and Culinary Manager for a luxury cruise line where he oversaw large-scale international food and beverage operations. He was previously employed for five years by another leading luxury cruise company in a range of food and beverage roles, lastly as Culinary Director, where he was involved in leading the food and beverage strategy.
Lead image: EXPLORA I in Quebec City, Canada | Credit: Kathy Pavlidis
