Silversea Cruises says its new structure integrating Asia into Europe comes amid a growing business out of Asia towards the Mediterranean, and vice versa from Europe to the Far East.
Asia was under Australia/New Zealand previously but is now overseen from Frankfurt where a new managing director Europe & Asia, Alfredo Spadon, is based.
Spadon, in a phone interview from Tokyo where he and new vice president of sales Asia, Daniel Krupp, were meeting industry partners, said Silversea has every intention to step up efforts in the fast growing Asian luxury cruise market.
The appointment of Krupp as vice president of sales Asia is a new resource; Krupp said he would be travelling around Asia in the first year to meet partners. A hunt is on for a new regional director Asia, based in Singapore, to replace Melvyn Yap and report to Krupp.
“We are renewing our focus on Asia. Our objective is to enlarge and deepen the distribution channel, analyse our strategic partners, see where we can create new opportunities, both locally and for fly cruises,” said Spadon.
“There is a lot of potential business out of Asia towards the Mediterranean, and we’re also seeing the same from Europe towards the Far East, so we think the integration of Europe and Asia will allow us to share and exchange knowledge. We are at the beginning of this stage. We’re extremely happy with what has been done by our colleague, Melvyn, in the last 18 years, now we want to (strengthen) our positioning and evaluate new opportunities,” he said.
In Asia, Silversea has deployed four ships for this 2017/2018 winter season, including for the first time its new ultra-luxury ship and latest flagship, the Silver Muse.
