Our Regional Director, Alvin Materi, reflects on our teams’ accomplishments during off-season

November marks the launch of cruise season for Destination Asia in our Southeast Asian ports. Between now and Christmas we will operate multiple two, three and four-ship port calls in a single day in Malaysia and Indonesia in December.

Not to say that Cruise Asia by Destination Asia hasn’t been busy this off-season. In September, we held our annual Cruise Asia Workshop in Singapore, which saw all of our Cruise Asia Managers and Directors gather for a full day of meetings and collaborative workshop sessions. We attended two Seatrade events: Seatrade Europe in Hamburg and later Seatrade Asia in Shanghai, where I had the pleasure of presenting a workshop session on the development of shore excursion trends, specifically the rise of experiential travel as it relates to cruise.

In the lead up to our high season, we also operated two challenging turnaround calls during which our teams proved once again why we are the best in the business. First in Hong Kong in September, during the height of the protests, we operated a pair of turnarounds for Viking Orion under conditions which required a robust emergency plan to be readied and put into action at a moment’s notice. And later in Tianjin, where CIQ restrictions in the port meant a forced overnight-stay for dozens of guests on fly / cruise packages over a 3-day period in October, creating an all-hands-on-deck situation to ensure a seamless experience for both guests and to our cruise client.

So, as we ramp up our operations for the exciting few months ahead, we look forward to welcoming our many clients back to Asia and look forward to a successful season.

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