Explora Journeys announced two senior appointments to its executive leadership team.

Koray Savas joins Explora Journeys from sister company MSC Cruises as vice president hotel.

At the same time, Alban Gjoka has been promoted to vice president of food and beverage. Both will report to Explora Journeys’ CEO Michael Ungerer.

 “It has been nearly three months since we launched our first ship Explora I and we are now moving ahead into the next chapter of the growth of our brand.  Koray and Alban both bring extensive experience and skills to our hotel and food and beverage operations respectively and they will add great value to our current ship at sea as well as to the development of the onboard experience for our upcoming five luxury ships,” said Ungerer.

Savas brings over 22 years of experience in the cruise industry and has spent the last five at MSC Cruises. He also served as brand performance director for the cruise line’s World Cruises in 2022. He also spent three years as vice president of hotel operations Asia based in Shanghai, China.

Gjoka joined Explora Journeys in 2022 as a senior lead of culinary operations from the Apollo Group where he spent 15 years. Previously, Gjoka spent five years in a range of food and beverage roles, most recently as culinary director, where he was involved in leading the food and beverage strategy.