Uniworld Boutique River Cruises say they are at the top of their game right now but even so, they refuse to “rest on their laurels” and have promised an “absolute focus on elevating the brand”.
Uniworld’s Managing Director Fiona Dalton held an intimate breakfast with the line’s top media partners yesterday, to discuss plans for 2020.
She said Uniworld was fervently against the concept of “growth for growth’s sake”.
“When the ocean cruise lines have success you’ll see they often try and throw a lot of capacity at the market, they try and grow very quickly but at Uniworld, we take a very measured approach to growth,” she said.
“We will leave that (rapid growth) for other cruise lines, for us it’s about making sure that we continue to bring that personalised service to everything we do.”
Uniworld’s Managing Director Fiona Dalton
One of Uniworld’s major plans is transforming the entire fleet into Super Ships (ships with more dining venues, more suites more public space more options for guests on board).
“We’ve got six super ships now and we are bringing four more online next year and we only have 17 ships in the fleet,” Fiona explained.
Fiona said the process involves taking a fabulous ship and just making them “next level amazing” like they’ve done most recently with S.S. Bon Voyage in Bordeaux.
Ensuring that their crew and guests are able to maintain genuine and special connections throughout the sailings is another reason they are taking a measured approach to growth.
“You’ll see on our ships a culture of support, understanding, connection and collaboration, the intangible things that can be hard to put in a brochure,” Fiona explained.
“When your crew are employed by your cruise line (as they are at Uniworld) they are not working on contract so they are part of our family. The average tender is nearly 10 years and 93% of our crew came back for 2019.”
Uniworld’s 2020 brochure is out this week, you can see more details on 2020 sailings here.
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