| Aus key as Uniworld expands

UNIWORLD Boutique River Cruises president & chief executive officer Ellen Bettridge has spoken of the importance of Australia to the cruise line, as it celebrates 50 years sailing.

Bettridge (pictured left with local managing director Alice Ager) is in Sydney this week for the first time since 2024 as Uniworld prepares to integrate its Luxury Gold sister brand into its itineraries (CW 03 Feb).

Our market will be key to the success of the partnership, Bettridge hinted, with Australia representing Uniworld’s most important source of guests outside the United States.

“Australia is our second-largest source market, it is incredibly important to us,” Bettridge said, speaking to Cruise Weekly.

“What I love about Australia is they come and they don’t just do one cruise, they do one after another, and they come back over and over again.”

This positions Australia as critical to filling the cruise line’s four new ships, Emilie, Marlene, Sao Rafael, and Audrey, which are set to debut over the next 18 months (CW 29 Oct).

Bettridge also hinted that even more ships may be on the way in 2028, thanks to the backing of The Travel Corporation’s new ownership, Apollo Management.

“They looked at [Uniworld] and said, ‘all you need is more ships’…they’re willing to write that cheque and just go make it happen,” she explained.

“There’s a lot more to come…we are seeing an increase in capacity of 17% going from 2026 to ’27…that’s not small…and there will be another big increase from ’27 to 2028,” she teased. MS