Sir Richard Branson made a blow to the cruise industry last week, he announced in Miami that he is going to launch three new ships between 2020 and 2022, but with a totally different outlook than most. His brand will now be known as Virgin Voyages.
Mr Branson said “the name cruise is pretty awful so I don’t like that. I don’t know why people call their companies cruise companies.” He also said that his brand would “change cruise for good”. Branson has a totally different vision about cruising, he thinks that the cruise industry is lacking in something and he wants to offer his brand as a small boutique line that will offer different experiences.
Virgin Voyages has ordered three 2,700-passenger ships for delivery in 2020, 2021 and 2022. The first will be homeported in Miami.
These three ships will begin construction in the next few years, with the steel cutting for the first ship set to take place early next year. They will all be identical and weigh 110,000 tons and carry 2,800 passengers.
As well as the ships being ‘small’ the design is to make them environmentally friendly and turn waste into clean electricity, aiming to give the ships a lower carbon foot print. Anything to help the environment is good, but it will interesting to see if it reflects in the price.
Mr Branson has not mentioned anything about where they are going to be sailing to, but one thing he has said is that he will be looking at visiting “Cuba”, which will be very exciting, at present not many cruise liners do port in Cuba.
I have to say this is very exciting news, Mr Branson always succeeds in every venture he launches.
Watch this space for more updates on what is to come !