Teri West
Peter Hillary, the son of Sir Edmund Hillary, stood at the lectern of the Explorers Club of New York last Monday and said he's calculated that he's spent 16 years of his life residing in tents and on mountains.
Like his father, he's lived as an adventurer, traversing Antarctica and the world's highest peaks, including five Mount Everest expeditions.
Now, however, he's also come to enjoy traveling to extreme regions on a luxury cruise ship, he said, earning laughs.
"You might call me a slow learner," Hillary said.
A cruise line was the reason he was at the Explorers Club that evening.
Ponant Explorations Group had gathered affiliates and members of the media to share the news of the expansion of its partnership with the Explorers Club. The partnership has brought Explorers Club members onto Ponant sailings as speakers and has enabled scientists to sail with Ponant to conduct research.
The partnership also represents Ponant's commitment to attracting adventurous, environmentally conscious travelers.
At the club's East Side estate, where you'll find a taxidermied polar bear and, on this night at least, an ice sculpture of a Ponant ship, Ponant also said it was expanding that partnership to include more voyages with the Explorers Club beginning next winter. For the first time, its Paul Gauguin Cruises and Aqua Expedition brands will also host Explorers Club sailings.
It also said that it would host more Arctic itineraries, thanks to the icebreaking capability of Aqua Expeditions' new vessel, which will become the first Aqua superyacht to sail the region.
Strategic partnerships with organizations, brands or associations are one of the many ways that cruise lines work to target and attract a specific audience. For Ponant, a French cruise line within the niche luxury expedition space, the Explorers Club partnership is also an example of how it is strategically building its presence in the U.S. market.
"We're very proud of this relationship," Ponant Explorations Group CEO of the Americas Samuel Chamberlain said. "We're very proud to be scaling this relationship further."
Hillary sailed to the North Pole aboard Ponant's polar icebreaking vessel Le Commandant Charcot this summer with Mark Armstrong, the son of astronaut Neil Armstrong, filming a documentary about a little-known voyage their fathers took to the North Pole in 1985.
Peter Hillary had joined the duo on that North Pole trip. In 2027, in partnership with the Explorers Club and Ponant, he will again sail to the geographic North Pole.
"It is an extraordinary Arctic expedition, and frankly, having just got back from one, I can't wait," Hillary said. "Captain, let's get on back up there."