Transcend Cruises wants the travel industry to know its name, but it's OK if travelers aren't familiar with it.
The B2B and charter-only river cruise line is marketing itself as the invisible partner for travel advisors and tour operators. For advisors, Transcend hopes to demystify the process of selling river cruises to groups.
Founder Matthew Shollar built the business out of personal frustration -- 50 failed charters across 25 years working in the luxury cruise industry.
Shollar elaborated, saying there were 50 instances in which groups were about to sign paperwork and pay a deposit but didn't because the cruise line couldn't meet their level of customization.
And the experience onboard the charters he booked was "homogenous," he said: same food, same ports, same itinerary, indistinguishable from any other cruise.
While speaking to potential clients at an event in New York in May, Shollar said consumer-focused cruise lines aren't equipped for customization in the way Transcend is designed to be.
Transcend, which will launch its first newbuild ship, the Transcend Connect, later this year, intends to shake up cruise charters, allowing an unprecedented level of customization, said chief revenue officer Kimberly Daley.
Daley joined Transcend from the tour business, having worked at Pleasant Holidays and Abercrombie & Kent. She indicated that reaching a high level of customization for tour groups was challenging.
Shollar said Transcend's entire experience will be customizable, from the itinerary to lighting to room configuration. Cabins can be booked individually, or two adjoining cabins can be combined to create a spacious suite.
The company is "creating a separate lane" in the industry with this model, said Angela Hughes, founder and CEO of Trips & Ships Luxury Travel in Winter Garden, Fla. She said Transcend is tapping into "a very real gap in the river market."
"Most river cruise lines were not built around full ship charters as their core business," she said. "They were built around independent passengers and then layering on affinity groups, partial charters, hosted groups and specialty departures into existing inventory."
Hughes noted that full charters carry significant financial risk, leading her agency to typically sell hosted groups and contracted group space rather than full charters.
Shollar wants advisors to rethink what it means to charter.
"Maybe you're a travel agent that does groups day in and day out, but you never thought of yourself as a charterer," he said. "And the answer is, if you're doing groups, you're already a charterer. You just haven't talked to us yet."
The specific gap that Hughes foresees Transcend filling is in the meetings-and-incentives market, due to the line's customized programming and breakout spaces, which don't exist on other river ships.
"Transcend seems to be building specifically for that, which is desperately needed," she said.
But Hughes has questions. Is there enough demand to support Transcend's model? Can Transcend fill a fleet of ships? Shollar said he plans to expand to a dozen ships on six rivers in Europe.
Mary Graham, owner of Trips by Mary in Holly Springs, N.C., and founder of the 44,000-member All About River Cruises Tips & Info Facebook page, is unconvinced that selling charters would move the needle on her business. It actually would be stress-inducing, she said.
"When I've seen my fellow advisors charter a yacht in Croatia or something along those lines, they are under the gun to sell that space," Graham said.
Besides catering to groups, Transcend also is chartering out ships to National Geographic-Lindblad Expeditions for Europe river cruises. The expedition cruise line inked a multiyear deal with Transcend and will begin sailing in August.
Graham said that part of Transcend's business makes sense for her, and it's a product she would sell to clients.