AmaWaterways has announced the retirement of Gary Murphy, the line’s senior vice-president of sales.

Murphy’s retirement will be effective from 1 April. He will be succeeded by Alex Pinelo, who has been promoted from vice-president of sales to the senior vice-president of sales position.

Following in the footsteps of his father Jimmy Murphy, who co-founded AmaWaterways with Rudi Schreiner and Kristin Karst in 2002, Gary Murphy joined the river cruise line in 2009.

In 2019, he was named senior VP of sales and worked to build AmaWaterways’ relationships with travel agents and launch support programmes.

Pinelo will lead the North American sales team “in strengthening the personal relationships with its valued travel agent partners”, the line said.

Murphy said: “It is difficult for me to use the term ‘retirement’, but I have two passions in my life – AmaWaterways and my family – and the time has come for me to devote more time to the second one.

“The Murphys are forever attached to Rudi, Kristin and the entire AmaWaterways family, and we look forward to celebrating with AmaWaterways as it continues to set the standard for river cruising around the globe.

“With AmaWaterways’ strong management team, the company is in an excellent position to capture a greater proportion of the river cruise market as the travel industry rebounds in the year ahead.”

Executive vice-president and co-founder Kristin Karst added: “Gary has been a valued member of our team and the AmaWaterways family.

“His unfaltering respect and support of the travel agent community has been instrumental in building the strong partnerships and mutual trust we have with our national account partners.

“We will miss Gary’s wisdom, enthusiasm and passion on a day-to-day basis, but as a co-owner of AmaWaterways, he will remain an active member of our board representing the Murphy family, along with his sister Susan.

“The sales team has grown and developed tremendously under Gary’s leadership, and we are so excited to see what the future holds as Alex steps into his new role.”

Schreiner said the line’s “2022 reservations are looking very strong, particularly for the second half of the year”.

AmaWaterways will launch its 2022 European season in mid-March. It also plans to unveil new ship AmaMagdalena – which is scheduled to debut on Colombia’s Magdalena River – in early 2024.