Courageous decisions are sometimes needed. For luxury operator AmaWaterways that came in the form of a revolutionary ship. We speak to Jamie Loizou to dissect where the line goes from here.

Many live by the mantra of go big or go home – do things to the fullest; be extravagant. Believe in the mission and defeat the naysayers. Can such a statement be applied to the river cruise business? Well, yes, actually.

“AmaMagna has widened the appeal not only for us but for the river cruise market in general,” explains AmaWaterways’ sales, marketing & digital director, Jamie Loizou.

“It is more akin to an ocean ship, like a boutique ocean ship, purely because of the space in the public areas, the number of restaurants, the size of the staterooms and the suites.”

AmaMagna – the fascinating 196-passenger double-width ship launched last year for the Danube – is the embodiment of the mantra. Who said river ships can’t be different?

“Those people that have been cruising in ultra-luxury can comfortably take a step into river cruising. And actually, once they do, they’ll realise that river cruising is very different to ocean. We’ve seen a lot of people come over to AmaMagna from luxury ocean cruising.”

New on the Nile

The investment has paid off. Those late nights and unquestionable risk that comes when launching a new project safely satisfied.

“The feedback we’ve had from the ship has been fantastic,” adds Loizou. As for a second ship in the same mould, such a decision is in the hands of AmaWaterways’ co-founder and president Rudi Schreiner, and executive vice-president and co-owner Kristin Karst.

What has been confirmed is a new ship for the Nile, as demand increases for this celebrated destination following an uncertain couple of years. The new-build vessel, officially unveiled at the 2019 CLIA river cruise conference in Amsterdam, will carry between 66-70 passengers and will set sail in 2021.

Loizou says: “If you look at demand Egypt has always been one of those places that’s on people’s lists to visit. I don’t think that yearning to go there ever went away. There are beautiful antiquities there – the pyramids, you’ve got wonderful museums in Cairo,  the Valley of the Kings – so much to see.

“There’s always the need to try and find new destinations because we have people that have cruised four, five, six times with us, so there’s a need to not only create new itineraries in Europe but look further afield and that’s why we’ve got our Mekong programme, our Africa programme, and so on.”

Again, it undermines the growing confidence in, and demand for, destinations aside from the European heavyweights that – although they still dominate in pure passengers numbers – are more and more acting as stepping stones to more far-flung adventures

Become a champion

The other side of the coin, however, is the seldom-discussed pressure that the growth in passenger numbers and expansion into new destinations places upon travel agents.

It’s often stated that agents need to be become experts to clinch their sales, but with cruising as a whole moving into the mainstream holiday market, such a task is becoming harder by the day.

“I was a travel agent for nearly 10 years so I’ve been on the other side of the fence. There’s no doubt that being a travel agent is an incredibly difficult job,” says Loizou. “Many are not only selling river or not only selling ocean, of course, but also a lot of different types of travel.

“I understand what it’s like when people are throwing information. It’s the responsibility of the cruise line to make sure that the information is provided in a relevant way. Also, don’t just talk in cruise jargon, but talk about who the product is suitable for.

“At the CLIA river cruise conference I spoke about having a river cruise champion within every business; someone that can take all of that information and distil that down and say, ‘right, okay, this is what the team needs to know’.”

AmaWaterways’ answer is the launch of a new interactive training programme, the AmaAcademy, featuring new marketing material and incentives.

An online system is the “way to make sure that we spread our net in terms of education”, says Loizou. “We’re a family run business and to learn more about the ships and personalities is really, really important for travel agents. As we develop and innovate we need to tell our agents about that.”

Is that, for want of a better word, digestible, however? Are lines not replacing reams of paper information for reams of scrolling on websites and training portals?

“Yes, people want things that are snappy and they don’t want to read reams and reams – we want things that are more succinct,” explains Loizou. “Going forward I’m sure that platforms like WhatsApp will become more and more relevant. If we can make sure that we manage them correctly, then absolutely it’s something that can be an additional channel.”

And, as for another ‘go big or go home’ mission, there is the famed 250,000 passenger target. “It’s definitely achievable,” says Loizou. “I’m just waiting for the half a million figure to be thrown up.”