A new joint venture set up by Chins Travel Services (CTS) and China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO) have emerged as buyers of P&O Cruises’ 1995 built Oriana, which the Carnival Corporation & plc unit said earlier this year it had sold to an undisclosed buyer.

The owners have appointed V.Ships Leisure as technical and hotel operation managers of the vessel, a press officer for V.Ships told CruiseBusiness.com.

V.Ships Leisure is part of the V.Group, which has its head office in Glasgow in the UK.

Oriana is the oldest ship in the fleet of P&O Cruises and with a gross tonnage of 69,840, also the smallest. The ship will operate on bareboat charter for the British contemporary market unit of the Carnival group until August 2019.

P&O Cruises has two 184,000 gross ton LNG powered newbuildings on order from Meyer Werft in Germany