In this context, Travel2latam spoke with Alberto Muñoz, Associate Vice President for Latin America and the Caribbean at Royal Caribbean International.
I would like to hear from you about the news, primarily about Serenade of the Seas.
Serenade will be operating from October 2025 with departures from Panama and Cartagena, one-week itineraries, doing the ABC Aruba-Bonaire-Curaçao route. It is a ship that fits very well for Latin America because it has more balconies than the ship we had before. It is the most popular type of cabin. And specifically for the MICE issue, it is also a very good ship, or an itinerary, rather. Because it does not require a North American Visa, you can board in Colombia or Panama.
Then, the Allure of the Seas will be sailing to the Mediterranean next summer, with departures from Barcelona or Rome, but the most important thing is that the ship will be expanded and renovated.
It is already leaving from Port Canaveral with Caribe Corto and it works very well precisely because it is the newest ship, but you can take it on the weekend or from Monday to Friday. And for groups from Monday to Friday, that itinerary works very well.
We're also going to have the Ovation of the Seas sailing out of Los Angeles starting next year, which is a Quantum class ship. These are super ships sailing out of Los Angeles on three, four, five, six day itineraries.
So there will be plenty of options for MICE as well. And finally, the news that came out this week is about Star of the Seas, the little brother of Icon of the Seas.
Same concept as Utopia of the Seas or different?
Utopia is a short Caribbean, this is going to be seven days, and it will visit some islands. It will be doing Eastern or Western Caribbean.
How has management in the MICE area been and how are requests growing?
The MICE team has done an extraordinary job and we are the only cruise brand that has a team 100% dedicated to Latin America. And the projection is to increase the MICE business by more than two digits.
At first, the focus was more on Mexico, in fact, that is where we have the most business in that sense, but this year we never turned down business from any country, although there is a greater focus on Colombia, Argentina and Brazil for greater scope.
In relation to the Latin American market in general, is it growing for you?
For us, the trade, the relationship with the trade is very important, so we always have representatives throughout Latin America. We also support clients if they seek us out directly, but much of the strategy of some of our partners has been to open stores, points of sale to support clients as well.