Thursday September 4 2014

It has been a week dominated by the purchase by Norwegian Cruise Lines of Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises - a $3 billion purchase that has secured Norwegian two cruise lines!

There is inevitably a lot of comment and news surrounding the deal, including this Travel Weekly interview with the Norwegian boss Kevin Sheehan in which he indicates that a UK based ship from the group is now on the cards - read here.

Sheehan also says: "Norwegian has gone from being a joke in this industry to the best in class in terms of yields, operational profit and onboard spend."

MSC meanwhile have been launching their new booking platform MSC Book to a short list of travel agent partners, and will roll out the new technology more widely in due course: read here.

Staying with MSC it was off for a major refit this week for Armonia as she is increased in size and refurbished as part of their 'Renaissance' programme: read here.

Of course last week we talked a lot about Quantum of the Seas launching in October - Royal Caribbean are clear that they are relying on travel agents to spread the word: read here.  And here is an article on TTG on that ship visit from last week to see Quantum and Anthem: read here.

Finally this week it was great to see the CLIA UK & Ireland River Cruise Convention being covered by Travel Weekly - the event held on Nov 16 & 17 will showcase the sector to member travel agents: read here.

There is no weekly update next week, but we are back the week after!