Peter Deilmann Cruises announced in late June that its river cruise ships would cease operating after October. Ron Santangelo, who served as president of Deilmann's North America operations for 13 years and is the newly appointed vice president of business development at AMA Waterways, spoke with Senior Editor Michelle Baran about how the river cruise market has evolved since the early Deilmann days.
Q: How did Americans come to embrace river cruising?
A: Quickly we came to see that all of the benefits of ocean cruising -- which was pack and unpack only once, and have your product basically be all-inclusive, and we'll transfer you from one place to another -- all held true for a river cruise. There was less to do onboard but a lot more to do on shore. And so, the product began to take hold.
Q: How do the early players -- Deilmann, Viking and Uniworld -- differ?
A: The products were different from the get-go, but it was hard to discern what the differences were until Viking came along and created a homogeneous product that they were mass marketing to the customers. Then you could see very distinctly what Deilmann was all about -- luxury cruises on much smaller vessels with a mix of Europeans and Americans -- whereas Viking was all Americans, and then Uniworld was Americans, primarily, with a tour operator product.
Q: How has the river cruise customer evolved?
A: Everybody's customer in the river cruise business continues to be a husband and wife, someone 60-plus, who has been to Europe many times and is looking for something different, and in most cases has had ocean cruise experience.
It's a tough sell for people traveling with children. We like to think we can [sell to] extended families, but are fully cognizant that we have very limited facilities for children. Everybody's trying to get the customer base a little bit younger, but it's quite difficult because on a river vessel there are no nightclubs, no stage shows. Primarily, it's modest entertainment at night.
Q: Does today's American river cruiser appreciate all the new vessels being launched?
A: I think the American consumer is thrilled with the choice. Everybody loves new vessels. You can get your top dollar with a new vessel, you keep your customers enthralled with new ships. It is a perceived sales benefit to have new ships.
Q: Has the river cruise market fully matured yet, after all this time?
A: The number of people that go to Europe in a year from the U.S., it's about 12 million. The number of people that have left the U.S. to go on a river cruise, it's probably under 200,000. The number of potential guests for the rivers is not mature at all. It is still very much a niche product. Why is that? The river ships are all small, only 150 to 170 berths. So even though there are several river companies, each of which has seven to 10 vessels, it doesn't add up to a tremendous number of beds. And the season is only about 32 weeks, from the middle of March until the middle of November. To the American, river cruising didn't even exist before '91. So it's still evolving, it's still developing.
Take a company like AMA: Now we're looking at the Mekong. Other companies have opened China. There are other opportunities to stay in the river genre and deliver product that the customer wants, the Danube being far and above the most sought after of all the rivers, and that's because of Vienna and Budapest. There are lots of opportunities to offer new product.