Norwegian Cruise Line today announced it will open a new contact center in Manila, Philippines on February 7, 2011, to support its rapidly growing Asia Pacific markets. The contact center will be dedicated to assisting travel partners based within the region in real-time and is located in Genting Hong Kong’s regional operating headquarters.  Genting Hong Kong (GHK) is a 50% joint owner of Norwegian Cruise Line.

“Operational support at a local level is an important area we identified from the feedback we received from trade partners during 2010,” said Francis Riley, director of sales for the Asia Pacific market.  “It’s important that as we continue to develop and grow these core markets that we are able to provide a quick and efficient process for agents to deal with us locally.  This is a vital step in our commitment to building and supporting our Asia Pacific business.”

In anticipation of a significant uplift in bookings, the contact center will have a dedicated team of fully trained reservation consultants, which is more than double the size of the original team that supported Asia Pacific from Norwegian’s Miami office.  Hours of operation will be from 9 am to 9 pm Monday to Friday and 9 am to 6 pm on Saturday.

Norwegian’s dedicated team of trainers from Miami have been on the ground in Manila since the beginning of January training the new reservation team on Norwegian Cruise Line’s fleet and Freestyle Cruising attributes, along with its systems. The trainers will remain in Manila during the first few weeks of operation to continue to assist as needed.

Riley added, “We are in the final stages of completing all the necessary contact details and booking information and will be communicating this to our trade partners in the region in the coming weeks.”