Scenic Luxury Cruises & Tours’ Founder, Glen Moroney, says his brand is ideally positioned to swoop on the rise in small-ship ocean cruising, as rival luxury cruise operators continue to boost capacity and vessel size.
Speaking of the future of expedition cruising on the Kathy Sullivan Explores podcast – the Astronaut and now Godmother of Scenic Eclipse II – Moroney said small ship cruising is the “fastest-growing segment” of cruising. That comment comes after Scenic conducted a “detailed market analysis” that found the small-ship market was growing at 20% a year.”There’s been a huge increase,” Moroney told Sullivan in the podcast, which appears to have been recorded some time ago but only made public last week, ahead of the christening ceremony in Malaga, Spain on Sunday.
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The luxury and high-end expedition cruise market is currently served by the likes of Seabourn with Seabourn Venture, Silversea with Silver Endeavour, PONANT with Le Commandant Charcot, Viking with Viking Polaris and Viking Octantis, as well brands such as Lindblad Expeditions and Swan Hellenic.
Scenic Group operates two polar class ultra-luxury ships for its namesake luxury brand, Scenic Eclipse and the freshly christened Scenic Eclipse II, each with a capacity of 228-passengers. The company also operates the warmer water 100-guest superyacht Emerald Azzurra, and the soon-to-launch sistership, Emerald Sakara.
Moroney said the influx in expedition newbuilds was driven by new polar codes to Antarctica, which had long been dominated by Russian ice breakers and research vessels. Upgrading those vessels – which had an average age of 26 years – to the new polar code would be too expensive.
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