Viking UK managing director Wendy Atkin-Smith speaks to Cruise Trade News as the line prepares to welcome guests back on board for its domestic itineraries, setting sail in May.

Why are guests positive about cruising in late 2021/early 2022?

I don’t think any of us will ever take travel for granted again. Although it [lockdown] has given many of us the chance to take stock and reflect, I think one of the main things we have all been missing during this difficult time of isolation and lockdown is meeting and interacting with other people.

For Viking, our official restart of operations – which we are calling our ‘Welcome Back’ sailings – was triggered because the UK government recently signalled that it will allow the resumption of domestic cruises in May 2021.

Have you seen a surge in bookings for 2021 and where do travellers want to go?

Booking lead times for both our river and ocean cruises are always much longer than for other types of holidays. With our smaller ships, travellers don’t want to miss out due to lack of availability when it’s safe to travel again.

In terms of river itineraries, all of the perennial favourites – Danube Waltz, Rhine Getaway, Portugal’s River of Gold – are still as popular as ever but what we are also seeing is a trend towards longer itineraries, for example, the Grand European Tour, which is one of our longest river cruises covering four countries in 15 days.

Domestic cruises are proving extremely popular. On ocean, we recently launched a new itinerary – England’s Scenic Shores – which will be sailing roundtrip from Portsmouth and calling at Liverpool, Falmouth, Portland and the Isles of Scilly.

When we announced the first three domestic UK sailings of this itinerary they were fully booked by past guests before they went on general sale.  Due to popular demand, we have added additional sailings in June.

We have since announced that we will continue restarting limited operations with a collection of sailings around Bermuda and Iceland beginning in June 2021. We are also planning additional ‘Welcome Back’ sailings in a variety of other popular destinations, including Greece, Turkey and Malta, and we are hoping to announce additional sailings in 2021 as soon as government approvals are given.

What are proving to be more popular – river or ocean cruises? 

Since the beginning of last year demand has been consistently strong for river and ocean cruises for summer 2021 and beyond. In fact, demand was so high that last year we opened up bookings right through until 2023 which, even for us, was exceptionally early and means that our guests can take advantage of being able to book future cruises at today’s prices.

We will soon be launching 168-guest Seine ships and two new 190-guest Viking Longships on the Rhine and, further afield, new river ships on the Nile and Mekong.

We are launching a Mississippi river cruise, our first in North America, in 2022 and this is very popular with UK guests. Our new custom-built vessel, Viking Mississippi, will accommodate 386 guests in 193 outside staterooms and will be the most modern passenger ship in the region.

We have introduced seven ships since the launch of Viking’s ocean cruises in 2015 and our newest ocean ship, Viking Venus, will be launching in May this year. The naming ceremony will take place in the UK on 17 May and broadcast journalist, Anne Diamond, who also hosts one of our flagship programmes on Viking TV, will be the godmother.

We are also expanding our destination-focused travel experiences with the launch of new expedition voyages that will start in January 2022 to the Great Lakes, Antarctica and the Arctic.

Is the demand coming from previous Viking guests or those new to cruise?

It is a mix – especially with our England’s Scenic Shores sailings in June, we are seeing bookings from guests who are new to cruise. It is the perfect opportunity for culturally curious travellers to try a cruise while staying close to home, and they do not have to worry about flying or restrictions on international travel.

The investment we have made in building one-to-one relationships with the Viking community – and most importantly the trust this has fostered – has stood us in good stead over the past 12 months. A significant proportion of our guests have chosen to rebook their cruises.

Based on anecdotal feedback from our reservations team, we have received a significant number of bookings from new guests who have chosen to travel with Viking based on the way we handled rebookings and refunds for friends and family.

How different do you think the ships will be once you restart?

For now I think it is accepted that additional protocols will be in place however and wherever people travel and will certainly be part of the experience for the foreseeable future. However, given the successful roll-out of the vaccine around the world we are optimistic. It has given us all hope that some of the measures will be temporary.

Many of the measures that are in place will not affect the guest experience at all. For example, all staterooms on Viking ocean and river ships feature independent air handling units that do not share air with other areas of the ship.

The air in the public areas of our ships is also purified with new short-wavelength ultraviolet lights and high-density filters, which kill 99.99 per cent of all airborne viruses and bacteria.

Our ships, which are known for their clean Scandinavian design, are small but spacious. Even before the pandemic we were seeing a trend towards smaller ships and this looks set to continue, especially given that safety is now an even more important consideration.