CMV acquires two new ships for 2021

Cruise & Maritime Voyages is to add two new ships to its fleet for 2021.

P&O Australia’s Pacific Dawn and Pacific Aria will join the CMV fleet on March 2 and May 2, 2021 respectively.

The move increases CMV’s capacity by 30 per cent.

Pacific Dawn carries a maximum of 1,400 passengers across 798 cabins while Aria has 630 cabins and will carry 1,100 passengers.

The Aria will be deployed to CMV’s German brand. Dawn will be deployed to the UK. The Astor is to be redeployed to the French market.

Christian Verhounig, CEO said, “The introduction of two more ships to the global ocean fleet is the next exciting chapter of our strategic growth objectives. This will enable us to service increasing market demand for our traditional brand of cruising generated by our expanding international network of in-house sales offices and developing source markets. We have now acquired five cruise ships in just five years and are firmly on course in carrying 200,000 passengers in 2021.”

The new ship names will be unveiled later in December 2019 under CMV’s explorer theme.

Chris Coates, Group Commercial Director added: “As the CMV brand continues to evolve, the growing popularity of our traditional product, classic ships and destination focused cruise programs has encouraged us to accelerate plans to add capacity to the two top European cruise markets in the UK and Germany, which represent 85% of our business.

These two fine cruise ships perfectly complement our existing fleet providing trade partners and consumers alike with much needed extra capacity. For 2020, we expect close to 70% of capacity to be sold by the year end, in line with expectations. This provides an ideal platform for the early introduction of new tonnage and opportunities for summer 2021 with the focus very much on higher yield business.”

The 2021 summer programs will go on sale via the travel trade in early 2020.

Speaking to Cruise Adviser, Lisa Jacobs, head of trade sales & groups, said: “Thanks to the unwavering support of our trade partners, CMV has had another very successful year and we expect to be 70% sold for 2020 by the end of this year. Clearly there is strong consumer demand for our cruise product and therefore the need to increase capacity for 2021. We believe that this presents some very exciting opportunities for our trade partners as we grow our range of cruising holidays and the convenience of no fly regional departures. These mid-sized ships offer a greater range of on board facilities attracting a wider cruise demographic, but at the same time, retain that more traditional style of cruising with the friendly, personal service that CMV are so well known for.

“Our call-centre and online reservations systems offer ease of booking and our highly experienced Trade Sales Team are always on hand to help agents to develop their CMV business.”