| Crystal closure a sad day for the industry

ROBYN and Murray Sinfield own Home Travel Company, a Virtuoso and Savenio affiliate and one of Australia’s most respected cruise travel agencies.

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Good morning Corporate Crystal!

We certainly are in unprecedented global times – and companies are right to check their health status to ensure they will weather the storm of this pandemic.

BUT…

I can assure you Australians and New Zealanders, of any nationality, will be the first to travel again – and as the local travel industry we will be the first to support our partners.

The work done over the past three or so years by Karen Christensen and her team has been nothing short of amazing,

It’s not long ago Crystal Australia celebrated with colleagues the Virtuoso Elevate program, the achievement of millions of dollars in milestones, and was looking forward to celebrating 30 years.

We’ve been through the Crystal journey in Australia for the past three decades, – and were absolutely delighted when the outdated GSA model was dropped for local representation.

This was headed up by Karen Christensen, an individual who has the respect of the industry, who took a dream of an Australian office and turned it into reality, to achieve a market share from the other luxury providers – Silversea, Seabourn and Regent Seven Seas Cruises – who all had local offices each with respected industry cruise leaders.

She was able to manage a team that others would only hope for, from sales with Cathy Tees, marketing with Kim Taylor, amazing BDMs and a great reservation and operations team headed up by Wanda Ferrand.

This notice today is nothing short of ridiculous.

Please take notice from us, albiet a small home-based affiliate Virtuoso with around $250K in sales, that we won’t be dealing with Crystal Asia.

We, like our clients, have a choice and we have the power to build sales, as we’ve done over the past three or so years and to help build a brand.

We feel certain you’ve played straight into the hands of the other locally operated luxury cruise lines with added sales.

This is a sad day for the Australian cruise industry, sending also a bad message about the financial viability of your brand – in times when the message should be positive.

It makes us wonder why you would have not merged the Australian sales of the successful Crystal Cruises with the struggling brand Dream, if it was about saving money.

We wish you well – now, more than ever, you needed us in Australia and New Zealand.