Celebrity Cruises to build on non-US growth

Celebrity Cruises will have three of its new Solstice-class ships in Europe next year, when Celebrity Silhouette launches, to meet growing demand for the brand from outside the US.

Speaking on Celebrity Eclipse as it left the Meyer Werft shipyard in Papenburg, Germany, last week, president and chief executive officer Dan Hanrahan said 40% of Celebrity’s business this year will be from outside the US, “up substantially” on just two years ago.

He said: “We love what we are seeing in Europe and would love to grow more here. We will have more ships in Europe next year, but we are also looking seriously at going back to Australia and New Zealand now we have new tonnage.”

Celebrity Eclipse, the third in a series of five Solstice-class ships being built for Celebrity, arrives in Southampton on April 20.

 It is sailing two two-night cruises for some 2,000 UK agents, and starts its first revenue cruise on April 26. The ship is based in Southampton for the rest of the summer and will be back there for summer 2011.

Hanrahan said: “Eclipse is our best-selling ship in Europe, ahead of where we thought it would be. It’s been very exciting to watch demand build. We should have made the decision to come to the UK sooner.”

Several additions have been made to the on-board product to appeal to British tastes, including having kettles in cabins, steak and kidney pie and curries on the menus, and turning the Sky lounge into a pub for several nights on each cruise.

Hanrahan said there was a lot of debate about whether to anglicise Eclipse. “British passengers on Celebrity ships are happy with what we do, but as we will have so many from the UK we decided to make them feel more at home.”

He is expecting 75% of passengers to be from the UK, with 10%-15% from the US and the rest from Europe.

He added: “I am interested to see how the US guests react to the changes. My guess is they will like them and if they are successful we will consider rolling them out across the fleet.”

Celebrity has also changed the Silk Harvest Asian restaurant into Qsine, serving favourites such as fish and chips in cardboard cones and prawn cocktail in glasses with blue-flashing plastic ice. There is a cover charge is $30 per person.

Hanrahan said: “Silk Harvest has been a big hit on Solstice and Equinox so we are taking a bit of a risk with Qsine. But we have five ships coming in this class and we have to do something new. It gives passengers a reason to try the different ships.”

A steel-cutting ceremony for Celebrity Silhouette was held at Meyer Werft on Wednesday last week.