VOICE OF LUXURY


Wind Surf, in Majorca, Spain


Wind Spirit in Moorea, French Polynesia


have [business development manager, UK and Ireland] Anna Perrott – she is our number-one person in the UK and we really want to grow the market there. We have some very loyal travel advisors who have sold Windstar for a long time and have a really good history with the ships so we try to harness that. We’ve also hosted quite a few UK trade and media on our ships this summer to showcase the product, and we will continue to do that. Plus we’ve got very good booking incentives. If you combine all of that, I think we will grow the UK market well.


Q. For agents who haven’t sold Windstar before, what are the line’s key USPs? We have small ships and we have a lot of choice. We are luxury, but we are casual luxury. We don’t take ourselves too seriously. It’s a highly personalised service environment, but it’s unpretentious and without the stiffness. We don’t have formal nights and you don’t have to wear a jacket. That’s a very different feel to the ultra-luxury cruises out there.


Q. What are the biggest opportunities and challenges facing Windstar right now? There are still challenges depending on which countries we are visiting. For example, Greece still requires you to be tested before you board a cruise [even though] you don’t need to be tested to


go into Greece, so it’s communicating those things and making sure that guests understand that. We’ve got a lot of new ports and that’s our opportunity, that’s where we are diversifying our cruise offering. We will be in Australia and New Zealand early next year and we will start in Saudi Arabia at the end of next year. That is very exciting and we are all looking forward to taking our guests there.


+° à yiiÌ iÝ«>nÃion on Ìhi V>À`à voÀ 7in`ÃÌ>À¶ We expanded three of our ships during the pandemic. We cut them in half and made them bigger so we are now absorbing that expansion. We added 100 guests to each ship, which represents a 32% capacity increase across the fleet. The ships are fantastic and have been completely revamped – that was certainly our growth during the pandemic and we are building the future on that. Other than that, we currently don’t have any other plans.


+° in>llÞ] Üh>Ì `oià Ìhi ÜoÀ` lÕÝÕÀÞ mi>n Ìo ÞoÕ¶ Luxury means many things to many people. At Windstar, luxury is choice. We offer lots of choice, but we also offer amazing food and a highly personalised service. Personalisation is always a luxury. To me, luxury also means a relaxed ambience and having people around you who are like-minded.


aspiretravelclub.co.uk


SEPTEMBER 2022 ASPIRE 91


CREDIT: MICHAEL NALLY


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