ASTA River Cruise Expo is greater than ever

AMSTERDAM — The ASTA River Cruise Expo returned to Europe for its third 12 months, that includes extra ships, extra journey advisors and a good bigger venue. 

After two years of internet hosting the convention in Budapest, the 2024 ASTA River Cruise Expo was held in Amsterdam, the place 9 river cruise traces put a dozen ships on show on the Passenger Terminal Amsterdam, the identical terminal the place ocean cruise ships used to dock earlier than the town in 2023 banned them from docking there.

With a bigger terminal, which additionally has a big occasion house on the second degree, ASTA was in a position to enhance its attendance capability; almost 1,300 journey advisors attended the three-day convention. 

The fashionable venue additionally launched know-how capabilities for the convention, together with a big monitor that projected stay streams of what a number of cameras within the occasion house had been capturing, which ensured that advisors seated behind the room had been nonetheless in a position to see the audio system on stage clearly.

AmaWaterways, Viking, Emerald Cruises, Avalon Waterways, Riverside Luxurious Cruises, Amadeus River Cruises and Uniworld all returned to the convention this 12 months, whereas Tauck and Riviera River Cruises joined for the primary time. 

Ships on show on the expo included the Amadeus Cara, AmaWaterways’ AmaMora and AmaSerena, the Avalon Ardour and Avalon Imagery II, Riverside Debussy, Riviera’s MS Geoffrey Chaucer, Emerald Daybreak, Tauck’s MS Pleasure, Uniworld’s newly chartered S.S. Victoria, and the Viking Sigrun and Viking Ve.

ASTA made a number of adjustments to the expo this 12 months, corresponding to including a second commerce present in addition to controlling entry to the overall session, commerce exhibits, lunches and dinners by scanning QR codes printed on badges that had been required for the convention.

Mark Meader, ASTA’s senior vice chairman of trade affairs and schooling, mentioned the brand new coverage was launched, significantly for the lunches and dinners, so as to make issues “truthful and equal for all” in attendance. Final 12 months, there have been service points on some vessels as a result of extra folks attended dinners onboard that they weren’t assigned to, so employees had been typically overwhelmed with the quantity of sudden friends.

Sightseeing excursions, that are often held on the final day of the convention on Saturday, additionally noticed some adjustments this 12 months. For the previous two expos, ASTA dealt with organizing the sightseeing excursions in Budapest. This 12 months, the river cruise traces dealt with the excursions, with some offering excursions that they’d usually provide in Amsterdam and a few organizing particular excursions not usually out there on itineraries. For instance, Tauck organized a tour on the Heineken brewery for advisors staying on the Pleasure.