In this video you’ll hear from Andrew Schweitzer, Business Relationship Lead, UK & Ireland at Explora Journeys, and TTG’s Content Writer Charlotte Cullinan.
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Video transcript
Charlotte: Welcome to our In the Spotlight video with Explora Journeys! Andrew, let's start by chatting about your new brand campaign. What do agents need to know about it?
Andrew: Yeah, it's actually really exciting, Charlotte. So we've got a new brand campaign which only launched a couple of months ago, called Explore the Ocean State of Mind. And basically we're really challenging people to rethink about how they view, and how they look at luxury ocean travel. So rather than positioning us as a traditional sort of cruise experience, the campaign really sort of makes people think about us as a luxury lifestyle experience at sea.
So the whole concept basically challenges to rethink what it can be, and what the luxury ocean travel experience can be. Because on Explora Journeys we really do offer the feeling of staying in a luxury oceanfront hotel, but our address just happens to be the sea. So if you haven't seen the campaign yet definitely check it out.
Charlotte: That's fantastic. Thank you. And it's the first time that your entire fleet of six ships are now on sale together. So how can agents capitalise on this?
Andrew: It is. A couple of weeks ago we went on sale for our summer 2028 journeys, which means that now has introduced Explora VI into those sales. So for the very first time now we have every single one of our ships in the fleet on sale. So obviously people will know we've got Explora I and Explora II sailing at the moment. However, all those sales all the way through until summer 2028 does encompass Explora I, II, III, IV, V, and VI. So it's a really exciting time for us.
Up until now we've really just been all about the Med and the Caribbean, but with all of these other new destinations on offer now we've got so much more to offer our guests. So everywhere from Alaska to Asia, Northern Europe, South America, Central America the East Coast USA, New England… And on top of that as well, just recently we also launched our very first inaugural world journey and that's 128 days from Dubai to Barcelona, departing in January 2029.
Charlotte: Fabulous. Thank you. And of course Explora III is set to launch in July, isn't it?
Andrew: It is indeed. Very exciting. I think the real big thing that that we're really keen to see is the amount of space that is onboard Explora III. So for those people that are familiar with Explorer I and II, then you will know about the space-to-guest ratio and how much space there is.
So Explora I and II are 63,900 tons, and they take just over 900 guests, so 922 guests at maximum occupancy. However, Explorer III, IV, V, and VI, they're all going to be equipped with LNG tanks. So LNG is liquefied natural gas, it's the cleanest marine fuel available. To get those tanks on board, we need about 9,000 tons more space. But even with all that additional space, we're only going to be adding two additional suites, so 463 suites instead of 461, and every single one of those suites is ocean-facing with a full private terrace. So there's no insides or outsides, or just a window or a porthole. Every single one of our suites is ocean-facing.
And, 463 suites on a ship that could hold potentially up to 3,000 to 3,500 guests, just goes to show you how much space there is, and that's paramount for our guests, because to us, space is luxury.
Charlotte: And you also have an exciting global brand ambassador, so tell us more about who that is.
Andrew: So our global brand ambassador is Jannik Sinner, the world's number one tennis player. So I suppose that's especially exciting now given that we're on the lead-up to Wimbledon. And he's actually going to be onboard for a couple of days on Explora III’s prelude journey, which is exciting for those guests that that have booked on that as well.
We've also recently launched a programme called In Balance, which is called a Jannik Sinner Ocean Wellness Programme, and that's basically open for all journeys now, and it's been developed in collaboration with Jannik and his performance team. So it's a really different offering for our guests, which is really exciting.
Charlotte: And you also have lots of fantastic resources agents can use, so could you tell us what's available and how agents can access everything?
Andrew: We do. So we've got what we call the Explora Travel Advisor Centre, or ETAC for short. This is really your one-stop shop for travel advisors to really gain everything they need to help them promote and sell Explora Journeys.
So we've got everything on there from the Knowledge Suite, so all the training modules that people can complete, any news and updates, campaign messaging, all that kind of stuff is always uploaded onto ETAC. You've got the booking suite onboard as well if people are happy to go on and hold options and make bookings and create quotes themselves, then they have full access to that.
But I think the best part about ETAC is the Marketing Suite that we offer on there. So our Marketing Suite basically includes all of your image libraries, video libraries, and so on. People can download all of those assets and use them as they like. We've even got a really fantastic tool there that you can build your own flyers.
So you can basically choose what copy you want for different destinations. You can choose particular journeys as well and it will drop in all the information, and then you can just put it in as your call to action.
But the really exciting thing are two new digital tools that we offer, being Rallio and Approach Guides. So these are free to use for our travel advisor partners. And this is basically pre-approved content that we build, and you just sign up. It will literally take three minutes to do both of them. And Approach Guides creates a landing page for you, which looks like an Explora Journeys landing page, but with all of your call-to-action details.
And Rallio, which is for social media, where it's our content, but basically uploaded to your platforms with your call to action.
So they're really good tools, and I would definitely recommend signing up to them.
Charlotte: Thank you so much for sharing all of those insights, Andrew.
Andrew: My pleasure.
Charlotte: And thank you for watching our In the Spotlight video with Explora Journeys.
