Louis Cruise Cyprus plans to sell old ships, buy new

Louis Cruise Line is to start negotiations with European shipyards on a newbuilding of around 2,000-passenger capacity for delivery in 2012, as part of its restructuring plan that may see some older ships being sold off.

Louis Cruise chief executive Stelios Kiliaris was quoted by Lloyd’s List as saying that the restructuring started last year with the purchase of the Opera (renamed M/V Cristal) for USD 49 mln.

Contacted by the Financial Mirror, Kiliaris denied reports that the company planned to buy the half-built Regent Sky, presently docked at the Avlis shipyard in Perama, Greece.

The Greek investment bank ETBA initially had a reserve price of USD 18 mln for the 1200-passenger cruise ship that remained unfinished after Regency Cruises filed for bankruptcy in the late 1990s.

Louis’ biggest disadvantage is that most of current fleet of eight ships can only carry a range of 500 to 1,300 passengers, while rivals such as Carnival, Celebrity, MSC Cruises, etc. accommodate more than 3,000 passengers per ship.

Buying newbuilds will increase capacity and also make savings on refurbishments and rising fuel costs over the next decade, similar to the Louis Hotel’s division selling many of its properties, but maintaining the operations through a lease-back plan.

This is probably why the market expects Louis to sell its older vessels, the Ivory, the Princesa Marissa and the Serenade that could become floating hotels.

Louis also expects to work closely with the U.K. travel trade for the first time and is offering attractive commissions on all of its cruises, while the Cyprus company had maintained its own sales network in the past.

“We want to work closely with the trade, who can book our cruises in conjunction with any charter, low-cost or scheduled flight.  That gives agents the flexibility to create standalone cruise holidays or to combine a Louis cruise with other holiday arrangements,” said UK manager Peter Adamou.

The main 2008 programme is a series of three, four and seven-day itineraries out of Pireaus on board the line’s largest ship, Aquamarine (1,268 passengers), the 1,200-passenger Cristal and the slightly smaller Perla, which carries 1,095 holidaymakers. There is also a choice of week-long and 10-day sailings in both the Eastern and Western Mediterranean departing from Marseilles and Genoa, as well as Christmas and New Year itineraries, and a 16-day Canary Islands departure on December 5 on board the Orient Queen and Coral, and will be sailing out of Genoa.

Furthermore, Louis has five ships out on charter – four of the cruise ships (Thomson Destiny, Thomson Spirit, The Emerald and The Calypso) are chartered to Thomson Cruises and another one, the Arielle, to Transocean Tours.

Louis also expects to benefit from the rapid development of the island’s sleepy marinas into fully-fledged modern ventures attracting thousands of new visitors each year. It has joined one of the three joint ventures bidding for the mega cruise centre in Larnaca that is expected to be awarded by the end of February.