show report ACE RIVER CRUISE EXPO 2012 ACE River Cruise Expo
The 2nd ACE River Cruise Expo took place in Amsterdam November 18-19, with heavy fog once again failing to dampen spirits. Laura Gelder reports
American additions for Avalon
Avalon is to offer Mississippi cruises for the first time in 2013, partnering with the American Queen Steamboat Company and its American Queen. Guests of Avalon will be able to book either the 12-day America's Heartland: From Music City to the Big Easy 2013, or the 11-day Fall Foliage Spectacular: From the Windy City to the Twin Cities. The former travels from Nashville to
New Orleans, stopping at Memphis and Elvis’ home Graceland; Civil War city Vicksburg; and antebellum Natchez. The latter connects Chicago to St. Paul, Minneapolis, taking in Route 66, including Springfield, Illinois; Hannibal, boyhood home of writer Mark Twain; and Dubuque, Iowa’s oldest city and the Victorian capital of the United States. The American Queen is the largest
steamboat ever built and sports a two- deck-tall Grand Saloon. Guests are to be accompanied by an Avalon tour director.
www.avalonwaterways.com
New Mekong cruise
THE River Cruise Line has introduced its first Mekong River Cruise for 2013, the 16-day Mekong River & Highlights of Vietnam & Cambodia. The trip starts with two days in Hanoi, a Halong Bay cruise and a night in Ho Chi Minh City before the cruise takes in the Mekong Delta’s famous floating markets and fruit orchards. In Cambodia, the itinerary includes capital Phnom Penh, Tonle Sap Lake, Siem Reap and Angkor Wat.
www.rivercruiseline.co.uk
ACE welcomes fresh faces
“River Cruise ships are a lot more high- end then I thought they would be”
THEY SAID IT...
“As an independent, I came to the Ace River Cruise Expo last year because I was aware it was a great market to get into. I learned a lot but felt I could still learn more. The ship viewings are the most
important part of the expo because from a brochure you really can’t tell the differences between the ships. But the fam gives you a feel for what life on board is like which is even more important. I’ve been on a few river cruises in my time and attended a pre-expo fam this time, sailing the Rhine river on the Amadante and visiting cities like Cologne, Frankfurt and Koblenz. Catherine Doyle, Bawtry Travel World Choice
THERE were 200 delegates, including 110 travel agents, in attendance at the ACE River Cruise Expo. Of these – only nine had attended in 2011. Using the same formula as the
previous year, the show kicked off with an introduction from ACE Director Andy Harmer and talks from experts including Wesley Bosnic from Uniworld, who talked about the typical river cruise customer. A trade fair gave delegates the chance
to meet each cruise line, including new exhibitors for 2013, Croisi Europe, which has 27 ships in Europe and Vietnam and Luftner Cruises, which has 11 ships on Europe’s Rhine, Rhone, Danube, Saône and the Dutch and Belgian waterways. Luftner’s Amadeus Elegant hosted lunch
IN BRIEF River cruise customer. Figures revealed
at the ACE expo showed a typical river cruise customer: 37% are new to river cruising and 67% have tried ocean cruising. 80% take more than one holiday a year and 61% book late. Over 70% select cruises based on destinations. The Southeast is home to the most river cruisers and over 50% of river cruisers are 65-plus.
66 December 2012 •
www.sellinglonghaul.com Emerging destinations. Speaking at the
expo, cruise expert Albert Aird revealed some lesser-known river cruises, including: the Dnieper River, which takes in Ukraine’s Kiev, Odessa and the Black Sea; Botswana’s Chobe, adding on Victoria Falls and safaris; up-and-coming Burma’s Irrawaddy River; and Italy’s Po River, taking in famous cities Venice, Bologna and Verona.
Keep up-to-date with river cruising.
Agents who want to be in-the-loop when it comes to river cruising were urged to use the web. Top tips included following ACE on Twitter (@ACEtweeting) or signing up to Google Alerts, a free service which allows users to track a particular subject and receive email alerts when new material is published online.
for the delegates. Returning exhibitors included APT Touring, eWaterways and Tauck River Cruising. Each agent got to experience a night onboard a river cruise ship, staying on either Uniworld’s S.S Antoinette or Avalon Vista and enjoying dinner, before swapping for breakfast the next day in order to experience the hospitality of both companies. Six ships exhibited at the show in total, including Amawaterway’s AMA Dante, River Cruise Line’s Switzerland II and Shearings’ Da Vinci. Delegates also had the chance to experience the popular river cruise port of Amsterdam on an evening canal cruise and a day bike ride.
www.cruiseexperts.org
"I decided to attend the River Cruise Expo because I wanted to learn more about river cruising and actually experience the different vessels. The biggest surprise for me is that the ships are a lot more high-end than I thought they would be. I’d been on a Hurtigruten before, which was great but fairly basic, and I assumed river cruise ships would be the same sort of style but they certainly aren’t. The talks have been very interesting,
particularly hearing about the different rivers and also learning useful facts – for instance, I never realised that river ships, unlike ocean cruise ships, sail during the day." Davina Simmons, CruiseXperts
LAURA GELDER
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