AZAMARA Club Cruises, Royal Caribbean Cruises’ upmarket boutique brand, has unveiled significant upgrades for Azamara Quest after the ship’s two-week dry-dock in Singapore.
All 345 staterooms and suites on the 30,277-gross registered tons Azamara Quest underwent a complete overhaul, and two brand-new Spa Suites were also added to the inventory.
As well, the main areas in the ship have been refurbished, refitted with new technology and new venues created.
Ellen Bettridge, Azamara Club Cruises’ vice president of sales and marketing for the Americas, who was in Singapore for Azamara Quest’s dry-dock, said that she hopes the refurbishment will take the ship and brand to the next level.
Bettridge elaborated: “We’ve invested an incredible amount of money in these two ships (Azamara Quest and Azamara Journey) in order to prepare us for growth in the future. We are a five-year-old brand, and we only started making money two years ago. Since then, our net cruise yield in the Asian market has increased by 52 per cent.”
“The Asian market continues to grow, specifically markets like Singapore, India and Hong Kong – luxury markets in these three countries are emerging. This demographic wants the experience and luxury (that Azamara provides), and they also want to explore the destination. We’re a very good fit for certain parts of Asia.”
When asked where Asians usually liked to cruise to, she said: “When we looked at the trends over the last few years, a lot of the Asians loved going to the Mediterranean. But now we’re seeing them like the idea of being close to home. Bangkok is our number one port within Asia, followed by Singapore, Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi.”
But Bettridge feels that Azamara is not as well known as its sister brand Royal Caribbean International. Moreover, it only has two ships, hence they need to “leverage on their big sister” in order to grow the business.
At the moment, Azamara doesn’t have the capacity to cover the Chinese market with just two ships, but Bettridge said that the company would like to tap into that segment in the future.
From Singapore, Azamara Quest is going on a 17D/16N voyage to Dubai.
