NCL ramps up Australia efforts ahead of fleet expansion

NCL ramps up Australia efforts ahead of fleet expansion

Norwegian Cruise Lines is shifting its focus from its traditional North American stronghold to international expansion as it prepares to welcome five new ships to its fleet.

The company established a new Australia office in Sydney at the end of last year when it ended its sales and marketing arrangement with Star Cruises instead enlisting Steve Odell, formerly Silverseas’ president EMEA & Asia Pacific, to heading up its own new local operation.

“This is one of the places where we’re expanding because we’ve got a lot of new ships coming,” Odell told Travel Weekly.

“We realised probably around 18 months ago that expanding internationally was probably the way to go.”

With the cruise sector burgeoning in the local market, Australia is a “natural place” for NCL to be, according to Odell.

Although he said the brand had flourished under its former Star representation, with Australia currently ranking as the cruise line’s third most significant market, the time was “right” to take local operations under its own wing.

But although Norwegian Star will arrive in local waters in 2017, Odell doesn’t expect Australian passengers to make up a large percentage of sales, with almost half of local bookings instead for Hawaii due to its proximity, followed by Europe.

Nonetheless, it represents a “toe in the water” for NCL with Odell confirming that homeporting a ship in Australia is definitely “on the radar”.

“We don’t have a definitive plan at this point, but I don’t think it would be very long,” he said.

‘With us making this investment here, there’s a lot of speculation in the market as to what we might do.”

The nature of NCL’s product makes it the perfect fit for the Australian market thanks to its flexibility, he continued.

He highlighted the minimum 21 restaurants available in NCL’s Breakaway class ships and its offer of Aussie entertainment as major drawcards.

“I believe we probably have the most flexible products and that’s what’s going to stand out for Aussies,” he said.

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