North Star Cruises will pursue an international “rainbow tourism” strategy with Asia at the forefront, in order to expand its operations.
The luxury carrier has relied almost exclusively on the domestic market for 25 years and general manager Peter Trembath admitted this aspect of the business made him nervous.
“We don’t want to have all our eggs in one basket,” Trembath said. “It was that realisation that sent us to Europe and North America.”
However, passenger bookings from Europe and North America have now dried up and Trembath does not anticipate any one single country to fill the shortfall.
“It’s going to be a whole range of countries — Thailand, Taiwan, China, Malaysia, Singapore, India — this rainbow of travellers is going to come visit us,” Trembath said.
He reported strong interest in the product from Chinese suppliers that he had met with.
North Star hopes growth from these markets will enable expansion plans for a second ship that were shelved during the global financial crisis.
Meanwhile, bookings for the cruise ship True North are nearly at full capacity for this year’s Kimberly season.
“The industry is amazed that we have been able to do what we have done relying almost exclusively on domestic content,” Trembath said.
