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In two months, the French line has sold a yacht, ordered a yacht, and may soon increase its presence in Australia.<\/b><\/p>\n
COMPAGNIE du Ponant has recorded a strong year of sales in Australia and may be sending its next luxury vessel down under.<\/p>\n
A Ponant spokesperson told Cruise Weekly that the company is \u201cseriously looking at the yet-to-be-named new ship spending some time in Australian waters\u201d.<\/p>\n
Until then, L\u2019Austral, launched in April, is set to make its maiden visit to Australia in March 2012, calling at Townsville, Cairns, Port Douglas and Darwin.<\/p>\n
Represented in Australia by Travel the World, Ponant has been encouraged by the growth in local sales.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have had a good year and the sales are significantly up on last years departures \u2013 approximately 40%,\u201d said Michelle Taylor, TTW\u2019s director of sales and marketing.<\/p>\n
Taylor also confirmed further details about the sale of Le Diamant to International Shipping Partners (CW, 29 Nov).<\/p>\n
Ponant will continue to operate the vessel next summer for its scheduled Celtic itineraries from 06 June to 20 Sep 2012.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis enables CDP to honour several charters planned for a long time and to commercialise five Celtic cruises, which should be as successful as last year considering the first level of 2012 bookings,\u201d Taylor said.<\/p>\n
The sale of the 37-year old Le Diamant is part of the line\u2019s fleet modernisation, but Taylor said there were no plans to sell the 20- year-old Le Ponant.<\/p>\n
\u201cCDP does not intend to sell Le Ponant, which is an iconic ship of CDP, her three sails being the symbol of its logo.<\/p>\n
\u201cLe Ponant offers unique itineraries and moorings in the cruising industry.\u201d<\/p>\n
MEANWHILE, a new name has not yet been chosen for the next yacht, which is set to debut in June 2013, but it is likely to be selected through a consumer competition.<\/p>\n
\u201cTiming is still being finalised,\u201d Taylor said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Source: Cruise Weekly The 20-y-o Le Ponant was the French line’s first vessel. In two months, the French line has sold a yacht, ordered a yacht, and may soon increase its presence in Australia. COMPAGNIE du Ponant has recorded a strong year of sales in Australia and may be sending its next luxury vessel down […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[324,342],"class_list":["post-13696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cruise-weekly","tag-ponant-cruises"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13696\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}