Environmental
Right: Geoffrey Kent, founder and CEO of Abercrombie & Kent, on voyage to Antarctica.
Opening page: Partnering with Ponant has bolstered Abercrombie & Kent's fleet of polar vessels.
Abercrombie’s deep dive into expeditionary cruising
wasn’t simply born out of worldly curiosity, however. Financial circumstances were in fact its chief driver. “It was about money,” Kent admits. “Basically, we were owed a lot of money by the owner of the World Discoverer. We were his handling guy [and] we sent him a huge deposit. But he went bankrupt, so he had no chance of paying us back, so we took over his ships. And so, that’s really how it all started.”
“We design travel for people who define luxury not so much by the degree of elegance, but by the quality of the experience.”
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The rise in visitors to Antarctica and the Arctic, along with voyages to the Galápagos Islands and Greenland between 2017– 2018, reaching a peak of 148,000 passengers.
CLIA 28
Three decades on, the company’s intrepid cruises continue to draw in pockets of passengers every year as the expeditionary sector has continued to pull in record numbers of guests and birth state of the art vessels. Meanwhile, an ever-increasing variety of packed itineraries continues to offer passengers ‘once in a lifetime’ trips to exotic locations. Particularly popular have been trips to polar regions such as Antarctica and the Arctic, along with voyages to the Galápagos Islands and Greenland. According to CLIA, visitors to all four rose by almost one-third between 2017 and 2018, reaching 148,000 passengers – a trend that was still going strong pre-pandemic. Kent, meanwhile, has continued to expand the company to cater to this growing demand, ensuring that its vessels can cope during rugged excursions to polar regions. After signing a deal with French expeditionary outfit Ponant ten years ago, the groups’ Arctic and Antarctic itineraries have boomed while Ponant’s fleet has expanded. With seven state of the art vessels at its disposal, Abercrombie assembles a specialised line-up of marine biologists, ornithologists, historians, geologists and archaeologists for each expedition, while Ponant provides hotel staff as well as the captain and his team.
Merging to move forward
A series of savvy partnerships have bolstered company growth, not least in 2019 when it was announced
that Manfredi Lefebvre d’Ovidio, the businessman behind Monaco-based Heritage Group – and the brains behind luxury expedition line Silversea – would acquire a majority stake in the company.
Even in an industry renowned for large scale mergers, the move represents a significant change to Abercrombie’s hierarchical structure. Speaking publicly on the matter, Kent has talked of the reshuffle as a bid to enable the group’s bold expansion plans, which involve opening between five and ten destination management companies (DMCs) a year in different continents. As he reminds me, the latest will open in Saudi Arabia in 2022, along with several luxury lodges built across the kingdom. That said, did the prospect of ceding so much power to an outsider – 85% to be precise – not trouble Kent. After all, this is a company that he built from the ground up with a land rover and a couple of safari guides.
“I think my partner has done a great job, but of course, we’re the original adventure company, we created these experiences,” he counters. “Silversea has luxury boats, but no raw experiences… our whole DNA is experiential.” Speaking of Abercrombie’s brand identity, Kent recalls his early days spent with renowned naturalist and polar explorer Lars Eric Lindblad, founder of the eponymous Lindblad Expeditions. The pair worked together launching wind safaris in East Africa, but they had different ideas of what excursions should be. It was during those early years, Kent recalls, that the groups’ philosophy began to take shape.
“My vision was not the same as Lars. He was a great adventurer [but] his aim was very educational,” he explains. “He got everybody to go to the main lounge and if you didn’t come it would be broadcast in your cabin whether you liked it or not. You were educated every evening. I said, you know, ‘this is like going to school with a little bit of fun’. I wanted it to be fun with a bit of school. I liked his idea, but it was too much. I have a very laissez-faire idea of adventure. I love adventure that’s not [just] pre-packaged.” In its contemporary iteration, Kent maintains that the spirit of adventure is very much alive and well, with the groups’ founding philosophy of ‘adventure by day,
World Cruise Industry Review /
www.worldcruiseindustryreview.com
Abercrombie & Kent
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