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The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection is drawing a younger, new-to-cruise traveller to its stylish mega-yachts, with the average age of guests in their 50s, says Seb Seward, VP and GM Asia Pacific.

Speaking with media yesterday at Luxperience 2024 in Sydney, Seward told LATTE that due to half of The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection’s guests having never cruised previously, “we see that the demographic skews a bit younger than maybe the average cruiser.”

“We see it range from young families, to honeymooners, a lot of multi-generation – grandparents taking the grandkids, all the way up to the more traditional demographic. It’s varied,” he explained.

The brand’s appeal to new-to-cruise audiences is exciting for the industry, the Brit now based in Sydney, says. “When I speak to a lot of advisors and other cruise lines, they are very envious. We also see a very high repeat booking rate once the customer gets on board. Between 20-30% rebook,” he revealed.

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Seward told LATTE that The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection’s Asia program which launched five months ago has had “good uptake.”

That program will commence in very late 2025, with Luminara (the third of three mega-yachts in the current fleet, scheduled to enter service in July), and is based on three core Asian cities – Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo – with voyages ranging between 7- and 15-nights duration.

“There’s always more we can do, and we’re also looking at ways we can potentially tweak the itineraries for future seasons as well,” he revealed.

Seward said the late 2025/early 2026 itineraries are “quite long” and work well for the Australian and US markets. The program was designed with the US market at heart. He said broader and shorter itineraries are being evaluated.

He said the Asia program has kicked goals with The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection’s existing guests who were looking for something different, beyond the Med and Caribbean, which are operated by Evrima and Ilma.

Adding to that variety will almost certainly be a seasonal deployment of Luminara in Alaska, with the Asia program concluding with a sailing from Hong Kong to Alaska. However, Seward was unable to elaborate on the plan.

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work it out when you look at our last itinerary.”

The likely addition of Alaska and the Inside Passage adds even further capacity to the ‘Last Frontier’ in 2026 after a spate of announcements by other cruise lines heading there too.

But what is available to book now are recently launched sailings to Northern Europe for the first time.

“They have been very popular and we’re seeing great demand already for those. We’ve got some Iceland roundtrips, to the Norwegian fjords and we sail up the river to Bordeaux. We can do some different things, because of the size of our vessels, we can go maybe places others can’t get to.”

Seward told LATTE the Arctic Circle itineraries, operating roundtrip from Reykjavik, have been popular, again, appealing to the cruise line’s guests who are looking for something beyond the staples of the Med and Caribbean.

The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection is also close to publicly launching its 2026 Mediterranean and Northern European itineraries between April and October 2026, which will encompass 44 voyages aboard Ilma and Evrima, including 93 ports (six new, such as Greenwich in central London), across 23 countries.

“We’re also increasing our presence in well-travelled destinations such as Greece, Croatia and Spain.”

The luxury cruise line will offer themed voyages in the new program for the first-time, such as wine focused from Lisbon to Portsmouth, and golf-themed departure from Scotland.

Other initiatives being investigated are incorporating hotel stays in the Maldives and Bangkok on the positioning voyages to Asia next years, taking advantage of the brand’s tie-up through Marriott Bonvoy and The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company.

Meanwhile, Seward spoke of The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection’s vision for its Asia Pacific office, headquartered in Sydney. Reiterating details revealed first to LATTE earlier this month, the luxury cruise brand will begin a recruitment drive for a local reservations team (of, eventually, up to six staff) in the new year.

That is in order to”build a presence here, recognising that this is a huge cruise market and has huge potential.”

Seward emphasised that as a luxury brand and to service the region most effectively, “we need people here in-market to be able to work with agents and to be able to work with customers, to build that presence.”

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