Back

 

Viking River Cruises - win 3 "Best of Class" awards

Travel agents nationwide cast their votes for the best in travel, and Viking River Cruises was again named the number one river cruise line this past December. Travel Weekly readers were invited to submit nominations for ‘Reader’s Choice Awards” in a variety of categories during open voting this past summer. Finalists were selected from the leading submissions, followed by a second round of voting, with winners announced in New York City.

"We are delighted to receive this recognition from the industry," said Torstein Hagen, Founding Chairman, Viking River Cruises. "We continue our strong support of the travel trade, and are constantly ensuring our Viking standards exceed the expectations not only of travel agents but also their clients."

Viking River Cruises received similar recognition from the trade this past year when they were named "Best Overall Cruise Line for River Cruising" by Travel Age West, as well as being named the #1 River Cruise Line by Recommend, a key monthly trade publication. The company was also honored by consumers this past August when it received Travel + Leisure’s "World’s Best" Awards; and in November with a listing on Condé Nast Traveler’s "Reader’s Choice" Awards; CruiseReport.com named Viking "Best River Cruise Line" as well.

Silversea Cruises promote several key executives
Silversea Cruises promoted Marilyn Conroy to svp sales and marketing for the Americas; Trudy Redfern to svp sales and marketing and md of the UK office; Steve Odell to svp sales and marketing for Asia and the Pacific; and Enrico Origone to svp sales and marketing for continental Europe.
All will report to David Morris, evp worldwide sales and marketing. Sergio Dell'Acqua, who continues as vp sales and marketing for emerging markets, will also report to Morris.

Over the past few years, Conroy has developed and directed Silversea’s sales programs in the company's largest market, North America, and more recently has been instrumental in helping to plan and shape related marketing programs. She will now take on the additional challenge of penetrating the emerging markets in Latin America, particularly Mexico and Brazil, Silversea said.

Redfern has played a key role in growing the UK markets and will now oversee the sales and marketing functions for the following regions: UK, Ireland and Middle East (including UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon). In addition, she will take charge of operational and administrative aspects of the London office.

Odell, who launched Silversea’s push into the burgeoning Asia and Pacific markets several years ago, will continue to spearhead further expansion into the region from his office in Sydney, as earlier reported here. He also will oversee the operations of a regional sales office in Singapore, while targeting Japan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, South Korea, Thailand, the Philippines and mainland China.

The cruise operator said it had seen record sales growth in continental Europe under Origone’s leadership. He is assigned to continue developing strategies to further penetrate the market.

Exponent teams with management in V. Holdings buy-out
V.Holdings’ management has teamed up with Exponent Private Equity in a buy-out of V.Holdings, the world’s largest marine services provider and a leading international provider of energy outsourcing solutions. Close Brothers Private Equity, an investor since 2003, has reinvested some of the proceeds from its previous 50% holding to keep a minority interest.

Through its three business units, V.Ships, V.People and V.Investments, V.Holdings provides ship management and related services to over 900 vessels in both the cargo and leisure segments with $12 billion of assets under management. It also provides manpower recruitment, management and training as well as financial and commercial services such as financing and ship broking. Group revenue in 2006 was $196.6 million, a 42% increase over 2005.

Commenting on the transaction, Donald Anderson, V.Holdings Group CEO stated, “With this new investment structure V.Holdings is appropriately capitalised to pursue our business strategy involving an ambitious agenda for organic growth and selective acquisitions in the shipping and energy services sectors.” He added, “The Exponent team impressed us in terms of what they’ve achieved since their founding in 2004. Their views on future development of the V.Holdings group closely match our own and they recognise what we have achieved to date. That, combined with their experience investing in a varied range of sectors make Exponent an ideal investment partner for us. We are obviously delighted that Close Brothers, having generated a good return from its initial investment in V.Holdings, has retained an interest. We are also grateful for the strong support our customers have shown for our development agenda. They can be assured that our management team, as long-term shareholders of the group, will continue to be committed to delivering the best solutions for their businesses.”

Richard Campin, co-founder of Exponent commented: "V.Holdings is the most successful ship management company in the world. The business faces many opportunities for significant growth and we look forward to working with the V.Holdings team and contributing to the continued success of the business."

Tullio Biggi, Deputy Chairman and co-founder of V.Holdings, commented: “The success of V.Holdings to date is due largely to a true partnership culture we extend to all stakeholders. We are delighted to have found a new partner who shares this approach.”

Financing for the transaction was underwritten by HSBC. V.Holdings was advised by NM Rothschild and Norton Rose. Lazard and Allen & Overy acted for Exponent. Kinmont, Moore Stephens and Travers Smith advised V.Holdings’ management team.

V.Ships Leisure, a division of V. Ships, currently manages around 140 cruise ships.

New business partner for Silversea in Australia

Silversea Cruises has further expanded its distribution network around Australia with the appointment of Cruiseco, the 130-strong consortium of travel agencies, as its latest business partner.
This follows the announcement in January that the Australian arm of Virtuoso and Trailfinders had become Silversea representatives with joint general sales agents, Cruise Brokers and Wiltrans.

Silversea’s Steve Odell outlined details of the new partnership to delegates at the sixth annual Cruiseco convention on Queensland’s Gold Coast today.

Odell, now based in Sydney again as svp Asia Pacific, also launched a brochure of exclusive October 2007-December 2008 packages for Cruiseco members that include air content and pre- and post-sailing accommodation.

‘Wiltrans and Cruise Brokers have done a wonderful job in making Australia the third largest global market for Silversea and we want them to grow with us,’ Odell told Seatrade Insider. ‘But we need to expand the market with the extra capacity that will come on line with our new ship and that is why we are appointing new partners.’

Thomson and Island to be part of the TUI Travel deal

Under the merger plans disclosed yesterday by TUI and First Choice to form TUI Travel plc, TUI’s cruise divisions, Hapag Lloyd Cruises and the proposed joint venture with Carnival Corp & plc, to be called TUI Cruises, will not be part of the deal, TUI AG spokesman Kuzey Esener has confirmed. These two brands will remain under the TUI AG umbrella and operate out of Germany. However the UK-based Thomson cruise division, which operates five ships, and First Choice’s jv with Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd, Island Cruises with two ships, is part of the proposed deal.

The TUI Group is the European market leader in tourism and one of the top five players in global container shipping. The tour operators of TUI trade in 17 European countries and in 2005 sold the Group's products to around 21 million customers. TUI encompasses all in all about 3,200 travel agencies, 7 airlines with more than 100 aircraft and 35 incoming agencies. Its hotel portfolio is made up of 279 hotels with approximately 164,000 beds in 30 countries.

TUI provides its customers with complete holidays from a single source - from booking in a TUI travel agency, flights with one of the World of TUI airlines, accommodation in the Group's own hotels and customer-care by the Group's own incoming agencies.

Through its wholly owned subsidiary Hapag-Lloyd, headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, TUI operates one of the world's leading container shipping companies with more than 140 container ships. Under the brands of Hapag-Lloyd in Germany and Thomson in the UK, TUI also operates a fleet of nine cruise liners. The Hapag-Lloyd cruise ship division is the leading "premium and luxury cruise" tour operator in German-speaking countries. The four cruise liners including the 5-star-plus "MS Europa" are at home on all the world's oceans.

In the 2005 financial year, more than 60,000 employees achieved a turnover of more than EUR 19 billion. Over 70 percent of this was generated by the tourism division.

Fantastic buy-in opportunity - 5Star Ship Venice to Monte Carlo - May 07 - priced to sell

Worldwide is pleased to be able to offer our clients a really excellent value buy-in opportunity.  Please click on the above link for full details.  This offer is ONLY available via Worldwide so please contact us directly.