Tell your friends that you’re off on a cruise and topics pertaining to beaches, the Bahamas,Barbados, the Balearics and sunbathing usually form the follow up conversation; but not ifyou’re on a CMI Leisure managed cruise. Instead, polar bear, penguins and the phrase ‘blimey,isn’t it cold?’ are more par for the course. Daniel Barnes reports on this speciality cruisemanagement firm that has mastered the art of ‘Ocean Safaris’ from Pole to Pole.

Cruising...

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There was a time, not in the too distantpast, when travelling to the ArcticCircle or down to Antarctica was

reserved initially for ill-fated frostbittenexplorers and at a later date, hardy scientificresearchers. But with more people optingto ditch the bikinis and beach shorts forthermals, waterproofs and binoculars, thecruise industry in these challenging destinations is heating up at, thankfully,a faster rate than the ice caps. “The expedition segment is delivering

once-in-a-lifetime unique experiences byvisiting totally remote destinations thatbigger ships can’t get to. There’s a trend forpeople who are experienced cruisers whodon’t want to be on the big ships, of choosingour trips in order to see more meaningfuldestinations,” said Dietmar Wertanzl,President of CMI Leisure. “Our Antarctica season, operating cruises

out of Tierra Del Fuego in Argentina, goesfrom November until mid-March. Then were-position the ships to the Arctic from Aprilto September, visiting the likes of Iceland,Greenland and Spitzbergen in northernNorway. Our ‘Ocean Safaris’, as we like tocall them, move from visiting penguins topolar bears!” CMI Leisure may be the new name in this

market but for the company’s management,vessels and crew, this niche industry is oldhat. Swiss-based FleetPro Group’s oceanpassenger ship management business,FleetPro Leisure, was acquired by a groupof four Danish investors in 2015 and renamedCMI Leisure. CMI Leisure manages hotel operations

for seven ships previously managed byFleetPro Leisure: Ocean Diamond, OceanEndeavour, Ocean Atlantic, Saint Laurent,Sea Adventurer, Sea Endurance and SeaSpirit. The CMI partners also formed CruiseManagement International to assume tech-nical management of ten ships: Freewinds,

Grand Celebration, Oasia, Ocean Atlantic,Ocean Diamond, Ocean Endeavour, OceanNova, Sea Adventurer, Sea Endurance (therenamed Quest), and Sea Spirit. The twocompanies are based out of Miami (in theprevious FleetPro Leisure offices) and retainthe same shore and land based staff as theprevious company. “We are trying now to build the new brand;

using not only the same ships and previouscustomers, but also looking towards thefuture, keeping our eyes open to any oppor-tunities that may arise,” said Mr Wertanzl.

Adventure Focussed Expeditions “We are mostly operating our adventurefocussed expedition cruises with our part-ners – tour operators. The vessel sizes rangefrom 100 to a maximum of 200 passengersas there is a restriction on how many pas-sengers you can take ashore at any giventime to protect the environment.”Mr Wertanzl, who has worked for many

years in the high-end hospitality and cruiseindustry, said CMI acts as a “boutique hotelmanagement company that provides the hotel services to ship owners andtour operators.“In our case, we have ship owners, and

they then hire the technical management (allthe crew), and then commercially, charteringout the ships to tour operators who do thesales and marketing. Then the tour operatoror owner includes the hotel operations asa separate entity, or service, which canbe outsourced.”The corporate office in Miami, which

employs a dozen people, handles all thekey functions. “The lead functions are reallyoperations, and then the food and beverageside, the purchasing, logistics, humanresources, finance and accounting,” said MrWertanzl. “We also do our crewing all byourselves with our worldwide hiring part-ners, from the Philippines, Europe and

from Penguinsto Polar Bears

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Australia to Central America – the crew foreach ship is very international. In total, wehave over 400 crew members on the ships.

Remote Logistical Challenges “The main difference between the cruiseand hotel industries is the remoteness of our ships and the associated logisticalchallenges,” said Mr Wertanzl. “Once a shipleaves port, let’s say, in Antarctica, you cannotre-supply anything because there are neitherports of call nor airports as such, to get any-thing on the ship. So the planning, in termsof logistics and supplying the vessels, is thebiggest difference and challenge.”Speaking from the CMI’s sunny Florida

nerve centre, Mr Wertanzl said the over-riding objective is to deliver the experienceson each and every ship that its passengersnot just expect, but will never forget. “To achieve this we need to know every-

thing about each ship,” he said. “We haveconstant interaction with our charterersand our tour operators in terms of special

requests, services, menus and other requestsbefore the passengers book the cruise.“We are constantly communicating, but

then the main thing for us is to time, lead,and supply the ships with everything theyneed; they are integrated with us.”

A Different Mind-SetWhile Mr Wertanzl may have spent the bestpart of two decades residing in the Miamisunshine, he isn’t just an advocate of thesewinter wonderland type cruises; he is a keenand regular passenger too. But while thepresident of a company involved in such aniche cruise sector is understandably onboard to the idea, what message does hehave for the cruise loving majority who,perhaps through a lack of realising its via-bility, have yet booked, or even considered a holiday in colder, yet arguably more stun-ning, environments? “From a marketing point of view, it’s a

completely different mind-set. The guestswe have on the ships are running around

with binoculars, are up early in themorning looking out for wildlife, plus theZodiac RIBs is a key difference here. Wedon’t have any big shows or anything onthe ships; people go there because theywant to be educated about the region and about marine wildlife. It’s as I say‘different strokes for different folks’. It’s not for everyone.”With the CMI brand still in its earlydays,

the objective sailing forward, said MrWertanzl is all about increasing aware-ness; not just from a company point ofview, but promoting the entire market to a global audience. Concluding, MrWertanzl said both company and the spe-cialty cruise market have great potential. “We are very optimistic that the speciality

cruise segment is going to grow, and wewill have more opportunities to find moreship owners/operators and to provide ourservices to them. We’d hope that the segmentwill grow in size, maybe even double, in fiveto ten years.” n

Dietmar Wertanzl, President of CMI Leisure