Spring 2021

12 Reinventing Cruise Travel in the Galapagos With a refreshing approach to cruise travel in the Galapagos and Ecuador region, Golden Galapagos Cruises offers luxury ocean travel experiences that blow the competition out of the water. Golden Galapagos Cruises is a luxury cruise travel company dedicated to reinventing the industry’s attitude to travel in its region, leading by example. It is a concept that prior to its inception, it had heard thrown around a lot – but its founders didn’t see it being actioned in a way that they found satisfying. At the forefront of its business model is the idea of offering the most exclusive elements and destinations, ‘a real 5-star international luxury’, with a small vessel and a local operator. Its team seeks to give the guest the best experience they can whilst still maintaining an excellent level of accommodation and comfort that is hard to rival. Since its inception more than two decades ago, Golden Galapagos has been offering and forever improving these services both in Ecuador and the Galapagos; its newest upgrade being a full-service luxury operator with its headquarters located in Quito, Ecuador. Alongside this, it owns and operates the M/C Endemic and the M/C Elite, which are two mega catamaran vessels. As modern and comfortable as they are ‘eminently seaworthy’, each of Golden Galapagos’ vessels sets a new standard for luxury oceanic travel. Since its founding, its key objective has been to connect its guests with the islands they travel to. With the experiences it offers, it seeks to encourage its clients to build memories around positive associations with the region’s natural beauty, fostering an environment of discovery and wonder. It accomplishes this through a panoramic concept – its vessels Endemic and Elite are designed to engage a customer’s senses in allowing an unencumbered view of the world outside even from the interior with panoramic views in suits and social areas. Golden Galapagos cruises has several notable selling points. The vessels themselves have been designed with the best essential features of the yachts currently in operating in mind, with improvements made so that they can best deliver the experience possible. It also takes pride in the quality of its navigation – each vessel has an excellent level of stability in the water due to a twin-hulled design and bulbous bow that helps to reduce drag. In this way, Golden Galapagos’ yachts also achieve increased speed and fuel efficiency. Oct20715 In addition to this, its decades of experience have allowed it to cultivate a team of experts and professional people that take the utmost pride in what they do. On board, it boasts 11 crew members, with a service ratio of almost one to one that means that it can provide a highly personalised service to its clientele. Included amongst these people are a food specialist, top naturalist guides, and a cruise service officer, all of whom are highly competent and committed to delivering excellence. It offers comprehensive itineraries from 3 to 14 nights. Both during a cruise and on land, its company culture follows the values of honesty, loyalty, integrity, and teamwork. By keeping these things in mind, it can ensure excellent customer service and have every client that approaches it eager to come back. Furthermore, each member of its commercial and operational team has had years of experience working in the luxury service industry in some form or another. It also puts immense value on its team’s input. Throughout the past year of tough times across the board both in its industry and worldwide, it has endeavoured to make sure every voice within its ranks was heard, making any decisions a team effort rather than a corporate or executive one. Despite the significant hit to revenue streams in the tourism industry in the past year, Golden Galapagos in confident that the troubles coming to an end will give way to further opportunity. After the pandemic’s dust has settled, it foresees its customers searching to regain their connection with nature and the outside world through open-air activities. In this way, they will be looking for exactly what Golden Galapagos offers. Furthermore, it offers the chance for a group to charter the entirety of one of its vessels privately, so the customer can have peace of mind in it being a safe experience. Company: Golden Galapagos Cruises Contact: Ivonne Zumarraga Website: www.goldengalapagoscruises.com