AmaWaterways relishing Virtuoso pact, post APT split

AmaWaterways‘ partnership in Australia with luxury travel consortia, Virtuoso, is going from strength-to-strength, after the river cruise line parted ways with APT, Co-Founder Kristin Karst has revealed.

In Sydney last month to visit the APAC headquarters for the first time, Karst enthused about the long-standing relationship with the Melbourne-based luxury travel group. She told LATTE that collaboration with APT began in AmaWaterways’ first few years of operation as it was finding its feet.

Such was the strength of that nearly 20 year alliance, Lou Tandy, the daughter of APT’s founder, the late Geoff McGeary, was bestowed with the honour of christening AmaDante as godmother back in 2008.

The parties confirmed they had parted ways in 2023, which came into effect at the end of last year.

“We are still friends,” Karst told LATTE. “River cruising has been evolving and APT felt it was time to focus on what they wanted to do.”

(Earlier this year, APT launched two of its own river ships in Europe, APT Solara and APT Ostara.)

For AmaWaterways, shipbuilding was Co-Founder and former President, Rudi Schreiner‘s forte, with his extensive experience and knowledge on the rivers.

Karst explained that AmaWaterways’ contract with APT was a GSA arrangement, limiting what the Los Angeles-based cruise operator could do itself in the Australia and New Zealand market during the term of that arrangement. Now, with a 16-month young office in Sydney’s CBD, AmaWaterways is charting its own course, doing things “how we want to do it,” the river cruise expert said.

That included tapping into Virtuoso’s vast network of travel agencies down under. As Gary Murphy, Co-Owner and SVP of Sales, said in early 2024 at Virtuoso Forum. “We’ve wanted to have this relationship for such a long time. “APT did a phenomenal job,” Murphy told LATTE at the time. “They would take five ships each season and focus on filling those ships they had chartered. But we have all this other product too.”

Karst said last month: “We are now free to capitalise on our partnership with Virtuoso in this market and their agent’s are supporting us very well.

“That was a missed opportunity for us, so everyone felt it’s time to part ways… in a good way,” she said.

AmaWaterways has been a Virtuoso partner since 2009, with Karst recognising the significance of the reach the luxury travel group offers.

“Virtuoso’s agency network is a very, very important market for us, not just in the US and Canada, but the consortia expands globally, and we are there to support. We opened the office here, we have a Director of Sales in Southeast Asia, we have a Director of Sales in Latin America, and Virtuoso has representatives all over the place.”

Karst said she is “very happy” with the growth in business coming out of Australia more broadly as well.

“There is so much potential, so many opportunities going forward. The growth is great, but we can do so much more,” she added. That includes honing in on dedicated wine hosted sailings, potentially with locally based winemakers, and luring their audiences to the rivers of Europe. The same concept has soared in popularity in the US, where about 100 wine experience cruises are scheduled for 2026 and 2027.

“I know we can replicate that in Australia,” Karst says with confidence.

Lead image: At AmaWaterways Sydney outpost, from left are Steve Richards, Managing Director ANZ, Kirstin Karst, Co-Founder and Global Brand Ambassador and Angela Smith, Head of Marketing, ANZ.