Virgin Voyages is targeting a latest variety of traveler: distant employees.
In March, the Miami-based cruise line owned by Sir Richard Branson introduced a month-long cruise called the “Scarlet Summer Season Pass.” It’s essentially 4 week-long cruises packaged together to appeal to distant employees who wish to spend a month at sea in southern Europe.
“People have really adopted the flexible working style, and it resonates with travelers,” Virgin Voyages’ CEO Nirmal Saverimuttu told CNBC Travel. “We got quite a lot of individuals who said it looks like an incredible value.”
The Scarlet Summer Season Pass covers two people and costs $9,990. The speed features a room, meals, group fitness classes and Wi-Fi, plus laundry services, every day coffee and tea credits and access to workspaces.
Booking the “Season Pass” is 30% cheaper than booking 4 week-long cruises back to back, in line with Virgin’s website. Travelers also can swap out travel companions for various legs of the cruise, said Saverimuttu, so long as they’re 18 or older, in step with Virgin Voyages’ adults-only policy.
Inside 24 hours of announcing the Season Pass, greater than 2,000 people registered interest in it, said Saverimuttu. When bookings opened, spots on the month-long cruise — which stops at places like Cannes, Rome and Ibiza — sold out in 48 hours, an organization representative told CNBC Travel.
That prompted Virgin Voyages to open additional spots for distant employees on a second cruise ship this summer.
The “Season Pass” cruises will sail on Virgin’s Scarlet Lady and Resilient Lady ships, each of which may accommodate around 2,700 guests. Cruises are scheduled to sail from June to September this yr.
‘One among Richard’s ideas’
The recognition of Virgin’s Season Pass cruise stems from the broader shift to distant work for the reason that Covid-19 pandemic.
“We’re within the midst of a large transformation in how, what, and where we do our jobs,” KPMG’s chief economist, Diane Swonk, told CNBC Travel. “There isn’t a putting the work-from-home genie back within the bottle. Firms who try too aggressively to achieve this, lose quite a lot of their access to top talent and the range of their workforce.”
Virgin Voyages’ cruise ship Scarlet Lady in Liverpool, England.
Anthony Devlin | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images
Saverimuttu said a lot of the digital employees who’ve booked the cruise are of their mid-50s and are employed in full-time distant roles.
He said the concept for this system got here directly from Branson himself, after he learned passengers were taking prolonged trips while working remotely on the corporate’s ships.
He attributed this system’s quickly growing popularity to Branson’s “magic touch” for understanding today’s consumers.
“The response has really been phenomenal. It’s really surprised us,” he said. “But you understand, perhaps I should not be surprised since it was certainly one of Richard’s ideas.”
