Holland America Line is focusing on differentiating its product from the competition through a series of initiatives across different sectors.

“The (pandemic) pause really allowed some time to reflect and sharpen how it is that we want to come to market, how it is that we want to deliver the experience and how it is that we want to be different,” said Holland America Line’s Gus Antorcha at an event at Port Everglades on Sunday.

According to him, the company is now shifting to a different purpose based on three main pillars: service, ships and deployment.

With that focus, Holland America aims to offer a “personal” travel experience to guests, in addition to “expertly crafted itineraries” and “genuine connections,” Antorcha added.

“We train our crew differently, combining it with our ships and itineraries, that allows us and our team to enable passengers and our team to make genuine connections, and allow genuine connections to happen between the guests and the ports, cultures and people that we visit around the world”, he said.

The service onboard the Holland America Line feels different too, Antorcha added, noting that it has a proper “personal touch.”

“I hear that from our guests and the trade. I think it’s the way our team members deliver service. It’s very personal to them and to us. It’s anticipatory, it’s caring and it’s genuine”, he explained.

The brand also focuses on smaller ships, which according to Antorcha, have the perfect balance of size and onboard features.

“We are in the sweet spot where we are big enough to have entertainment options, dining options, multiple music venues and music specialty restaurants but not big enough to start to see the pinch points of larger ships”, he said.

The mid-sized ships can also go to ports that larger vessels are not able to, Antorcha added.

“We cruise to Montreal, for example. You can’t get big ships there and into many ports that we go to due to all kinds of restrictions.”

That leads into deployment, which is the third element of Holland America’s new focus, he continued.

According to Antorcha, the company has “some of the most differentiate deployment in the premium space.”

The achievement is the result of more time spent focusing on “what the guests want,” he added, highlighting the company’s new Legendary Voyages – a selection of longer, destination-focused cruises to different parts of the world