Airline disruptions and limited vacation time are among the biggest barriers preventing new-to-cruise luxury travelers from boarding a ship, said Silversea’s President, Bert Hernandez.
Hernandez said that while the world may be facing uncertainty and logistical challenges, internal data shows passengers are comfortable with onboard safety.
The anxiety lies in reaching the vessel, an important factor for a brand that mostly relies on fly-cruises and visits over 900 ports across all seven continents.
“We don’t really see a concern about safety onboard. Where you do start to see some issues is on the ancillary and logistical components of getting to and from the ship,” Hernandez explained, mentioning TSA issues in the United States..
To combat this, Silversea offers integrated booking packages to ensure that guests are covered if any logistical problems arise.
“We try to overcome that as a brand, focusing on reducing the friction points and ensuring that if something does go wrong, we can overcome it,” Hernandez said.
“We will make sure that, for instance, if you miss your flight, we will get you to the next port,” Hernandez explained.
This strategy gives guests peace of mind, Hernandez added, and helps to overcome some of the disruptions that are creating concern, resulting in a higher satisfaction rate.
Beyond the journey itself, time constraints remain one of the largest hurdles in attracting high-income working professionals.
To capture this demographic, Silversea is adding more seven-night sailings to its deployment, aimed at guests who cannot take off multiple weeks.
Hernandez said while shorter, the itineraries remain combinable into 14- or 21-night voyages for passengers with more time.
Drawing on his own experience, Hernandez pointed to the company’s Galapagos Islands deployment as an example of a weeklong voyage in which Silversea takes care of logistics.
Hernandez highlighted the itineraries as an option for families looking to introduce younger generations to luxury travel, as well as the proximity to nature in the archipelago.
“Going on a 28-day cruise around the Mediterranean is not going to work with some teenagers, so these seven days are perfect end-to-end handholding,” Hernandez noted.
“You fly into Quito, stay at a beautiful hotel, take a charter in; it just works logistically, and it’s a magical place,” Hernandez said.
Coupled with this expanded deployment portfolio is a restructured pricing model that Hernandez calls “the luxury of choice.”
Moving away from what he called one-size-fits-all packages, the brand is now allowing guests to design the vacation experience that they’re interested in, adding air, transfers, hotel or shore excursion credits if they want to.
However, true personalization takes place onboard, Hernandez continued, describing personalized service as a “hard-fought math” that relies on strict crew-to-guest ratios and comprehensive training.
“You have to have a crew-to-guest ratio that allows the crew to spend ample time with the guests,” Hernandez said.
“When you start to train and empower the crew, the magic happens; they form a relationship and a bond with the guests, and then they start to anticipate what they want. It’s the number one determinant for rebooking.”
