Teri West
In February, Aurora Expeditions will sail a cruise to Antarctica with exclusively female guests.
The women-only sailing -- a new concept for the brand and an unusual one in cruising -- will have female expedition leaders and female guest-speakers, including an astronaut.
The concept grew out of a recognition of the passengers Aurora was already attracting and a desire to further niche the brand by tapping into its strengths, said chief marketing officer Katie Malone.
The average age of Aurora's passengers hovers around 60, and the cruise line has been seeing an increasing number of women traveling alone, she said.
Its founder, Greg Mortimer, launched the company with the philosophy that when a nature expedition is a communal experience, it has a particularly electric quality. Offering a curated space for women to travel to Antarctica together emerged as one idea for something new and unique the cruise line could offer as it grows globally, Malone said.
"The idea of having 130 women together in this most pristine place of awe and wonder and to have that transformation and sense of community together -- if I could place these women anywhere in the world to have that transformation, it would be Antarctica," she said.
Aurora Expeditions chief marketing officer Katie Malone said the cruise line has been seeing an increasing number of women traveling alone. Photo Credit: Aurora Expeditions
Aurora is staffing the women-only cruises with a female expedition team and featuring female special guests like former NASA astronaut Sandra Magnus and travel photographer and writer Lola Akinmade Akerstrom. But otherwise, the structure of the sailings isn't different than your average cruise to Antarctica with Aurora, where passengers tend to bond and make lasting friendships, Malone said.
The first will be in February and another will follow in 2028. So far, Aurora has seen the passenger demographics skewing more North American than its average Antarctica cruise -- upwards of 80% of the passengers are North American, Malone said -- and consisting of more solo travelers and friends.
The sailing will cater to a demographic that is increasingly choosing to see the world on an expedition cruise regardless of whether they have a companion to bring, said head of global sales David Tanguay.
"When I say solo, I mean not necessarily because they're a widow or divorced but because their partner doesn't want to travel in Antarctica or in the Arctic," he said. "So they're like, 'You know what? You don't want to go? I'm going to go.' And the design of a women-only is to empower a community to travel together and to network and share stories."
While women-only cruises are still unusual, a variety of tour operators have been offering women-only tours for years. Like Aurora, tour companies have found them to be particularly popular in the U.S. market, attracting retirees and middle-aged professionals.
With expedition cruise lines being slower to pick up on this trend, Malone said Aurora believes that "this is a space we can really own."
"We are an evolving business," she said. "We're scaling and [staying] true to our core and always looking to innovate."