“We’re building a platform for future growth,” said Chris Theophilides, CEO, Celestyal Cruises.

“Our aspiration is not to remain a two-ship line but to get from two ships to more ships, and we to ensure that we’re operating in more parts of the world and on a year-round basis.”

Theophilides said the company had quite a number of ideas in terms of what’s next, after the recent news of a new ship with the Celestyal Discovery, and the news that the brand would expand to year-round operations with deployment to the Middle East for 2024-25.

“We will remain in the small- to mid-sized ship range,” Theophilides continued. “We don’t want to go big. We were very careful in selecting the ships we brought in. We brought them in for certain attributes for the guest experience. Those vessels also need to meet some operating metrics so we can get into some hidden gems, not only in Greece but in other parts of the world.”

Theophilides, noted that the company was offering new deployments, such as new ports in Europe and its new Middle East program, as a way to appeal to past guests.

“We have a very low repeat rate as we don’t give guests a new opportunity. We need to give our very satisfied guests an opportunity to revisit Celestyal with new areas of the globe,” he said.