EXCLUSIVE: How G Adventures will overhaul collapsed Swan Hellenic
G Adventures has revealed their plans for the besieged cruise line Swan Hellenic, which they acquired earlier this year.
G Adventures founder Bruce Poon Tip told Travel Weekly the acquisition of the cruise brand from All Leisure Travel Group came through as he was surfing in Barbados.
“Swan Hellenic is more of an iconic product than we are or will ever be. One thing you can’t buy is tradition and history,” Poon Tip said.
Poon Tip said that the G Adventures portfolio was now defined by its experiences and social enterprise model rather than group sizes or styles of travel.
In saying that, the new Swan Hellenic will see a huge reduction in passenger numbers.
“The ships got pretty big in the end. We think we can make it a specialist boutique product.”
Which means that the passenger numbers will be south of 200, Poon Tip said.
Poon Tip referenced G Adventures expedition cruise product, which is capped at 125 passengers, as the “sweet spot”.
“It’s our sweet spot to manage the groups better and to make the experience much more boutique and specialised.”
G Adventures also wants Swan Hellenic to have a zodiac expedition experience and said the ships will be at the high end of luxury.
The new owners do not wish to alienate Swan Hellenic’s existing customer base.
As for why the cruise line collapsed, Poon Tip blames misguided management.
All Leisure Travel Group had charter agreements “that weren’t great” while previous owner P&O cruises “made it a big cruise brand”.
“It got taken into that mainstream larger ship model and that’s hard to compete with,” he said.
G Adventures conceded that the collapse of the cruise lines Swan Hellenic had eroded consumer confidence.
“There is concern that the trust has been eroded because they did actually fold,” Poon Tip said.
However, he was optimistic that it could be leveraged for good.
“We’ve communicated with the data base. There is an open mind for us to put out a new product,” Poon Tip said.
G Adventures has been in touch with the family who started Swan Hellenic to reconnect with the company’s roots and story.
“They were taken in a different direction with All Leisure group,” Poon Tip said.
“It starts with a different product, taking down the ship size and also putting out a more active product. We’ll go to more unique destinations.”
“We’ll keep the tradition of the lecture series, the educational component, focusing as well on the higher seasons, summer in Europe. It was what Swan Hellenic was known for – the Baltics, the Med,” Poon Tip said.
G Adventures foresees that the new Swan Hellenic ship will set sail in October 2018.
Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au
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This articles contains some misguided statements: “The ships got pretty big in the end.” Swan never operated more than one ship at a time and had only four long-time charters in almost 50 years. The final ship Minerva had half the capacity of the previous Minerva II. The other ships would be considered small by today’s standards, so “It got taken into the mainstream larger hip model…” is nonsense. The eroded customer trust “because they did actually fold” is just weird.
I am a veteran Swan with five cruises over the last 25 years on three Swan ships. It was my favorite cruise line and hope it succeeds under the new owner, once the direction to be taken gets worked out. Swan was a shared learning experience as most all the passengers attended the lectures, and with the shore excursions included, they shared those too. The passenger list was overwhelmingly British, something not mentioned as Swan never broke into the US market, apart from the occasional affinity group. None of my five cruises had more than ten Yanks, and three of the five just four.