Alan Lam reporting

The marketing drive for Crystal Cruises’ recently announced massive air, sea, and river expansion programmes has taken another decisive step, with its tentacles reaching the source market of Argentina.

In a recent luncheon gathering, held in the prestigious La Bourgogne restaurant of Buenos Aires’s Alvear Palace Hotel, attended by over 30 carefully selected local travel agents, Crystal Cruises presented to the Argentine market its latest offering – the exclusive 14-night Buenos Aires-Antarctica-Buenos Aires itinerary, which was scheduled to depart from Buenos Aires on 13 January 2016, calling at Ushuaia, Antarctica, Port Stanley (Falkland Islands), Puerto Madryn, and Montevideo before returning to Buenos Aires.

Apart from introducing the new thematic itinerary, Crystal Cruises underscored its new strategy and shored its expansive vision with this market. The company was actively promoting the concepts of Crystal Residence, Crystal Yacht, and Crystal Luxury Air in the hope of appealing to the ultra-exclusive end of this South American market.

As a luxury operator in such an expansive mode, it is understandable that the company will need to reach as many source markets as its capacity allows. Cruise Business Review believes that reaching out to Argentina’s elites is a considered and perspicacious move, as concepts such as ultra luxury air travel, for instance, has a particular appeal in the upper echelon of the Argentine society. “On Crystal Luxury Air you can sleep like an angel,” Juliana Meyer Schmidt of Crystal Cruises told the local press.