Scenic managing director Glen Moroney in Sydney

Balconies aboard a Scenic river cruise vessel

Scenic Tours is notching up some impressive passenger satisfaction ratings on its European river cruises.

Managing director Glen Moroney revealed in Sydney yesterday the company had set itself the target of attaining a 9.3 customer satisfaction rate (out of 10) for its first two ships, Scenic Sapphire and Scenic Emerald. The benchmark had been set so high that it was virtually impossible to score 10, he added.

The first sailing of Scenic Sapphire had scored 8.99 and the most recent sailing “came back with 9.56 – which is unheard of,” Moroney said.

“The Scenic Emerald had a few teething problems but it is now rating over 9 as well and will continue to get better.”

The company’s first two ships will be joined in March 2009 by Scenic Ruby and Scenic Diamond, with another two vessels due for delivery in 2010.

“That brings the total investment to $130 million,” Moroney commented.

“The fact that we’ve been able to fund it during one of the greatest credit crunches of all time is a credit to us. We are more than 70 per cent sold out for next year already – and considering many other people [competitors] are only just releasing the brochures for their European cruising products, that’s quite a feat.”

Showing a travel media audience a brochure of Scenic’s 2009/2010 program of river cruises and tours, Moroney said Scenic expected 2009/2010 would be “a sold-out season”, despite the world’s current economic problems.

Scenic Tours marketing executive Tanya Hawdon in Sydney

Gypsy fiddlers come aboard a Scenic European river cruise

Scenic’s new tour and cruise program (presented in the 188-page glossy brochure) includes a range of Earlybird offers for passengers booking by 30 November. An example: fly-free to Europe with savings of up to $4680 per couple on itineraries including a cruise departing in March and November 2009.

Some 30% of Scenic cruise clients add a European land tour before or after their cruise. Including land/cruise combos, Scenic offers 78 itineraries. A 15-day Jewels of Europe river cruise costs from $5550, cruise only, plus port charges and air taxes, based on April 2009 departures.

Moroney said a prime distinction of Scenic’s cruises lay in the fact its ships are purpose-built for the Australian market. In previous years, when Scenic chartered its river-cruise vessels from other companies, the best customer-service rating ever achieved was 8.82. The chartered vessels had been designed for Americans, who tended to take shorter cruises. Ships designed for shorter cruises tended to get “a bit claustrophobic” after a while, so Scenic, which has an average cruise duration of 14 nights, decided to design new vessels.

Space was a prime consideration in the design. Scenic calls its vessels “Space-Ships”, a term last used in the Australian travel market (without the hyphen) by Ansett International. All top-deck cabins on Scenic vessels have their own butler (the ships carry two butlers) and 82% of cabins have private balconies. Scenic claims the ships offer more space per passenger than any river cruising vessel in Europe. Most cruises run between Amsterdam and Budapest.

“We have a restaurant which could comfortably seat 200 or 210 people – although we carry only 169,” Moroney said.

“We have a second dining room upstairs which is unique to us. There’s an Italian restaurant on the lounge deck called Portobello’s. The lounge seats in comfort 172 passengers and we have a maximum of 169. When I went aboard the river cruises we chartered three years ago, the cabins had a table and a chair, with nowhere else to sit. Their French balconies are basically a sliding door – not an ideal place to enjoy the view with a glass of wine. So we put a balcony outside, two tables and a chair. It’s about 3.85 metres long by almost a metre wide.”

Another Scenic initiative was to include wine with meals – “not wine that you wouldn’t drink, but wine that you would drink.” This has hit bar sales dramatically, Moroney said, “because people are over-imbibing for lunch and dinner every evening” but it was a great deal for cruisers.

“In the Italian restaurant we have very good Italian wines as well. Can you imagine Australians with free wine with their meals?”

Scenic Tours marketing manager Liz Glover in Sydney

Scenic European river cruise vessel

Moroney, who started Scenic Tours after organising a local coach tour from the small Victorian coastal town of Warrnambool in 1986, still owns the company outright. It carries over 35,000 passengers a year and employs more than 250 staff plus 150 tour crew worldwide. Cruise customers are mainly self-funded retirees.