“The Champions of the Sea” starts today from Venice on board the “Costa Deliziosa” Costa Cruises newest showpiece
By Freesun News at 5 February, 2010, 10:20 am
More than 1,800 Travel Agents from around the world for the traditional annual event dedicated to Costa’s best partners.
The intense programme of events during the mini-cruise also includes
3 gala evenings with spectacular awards ceremonies.
The latest innovations in the annual 2011 catalogue,
to be presented on board, include the return of the round-the-world cruise.
Genoa, 1st February 2010 – Venice is the starting point for the 17th edition of the “The Champions of the Sea”, to be held 1-5 February on board the Costa Deliziosa, the newest “showpiece” in the fleet of Costa Cruises, Italy’s largest tourism group and Europe’s no. 1 cruise company.
This traditional annual event is dedicated to the best Travel Agents, Costa’s partners, and at least 1,800 travel professionals from Europe, Asia, the Americas, Africa and Oceania are expected to attend.
This is the first time the event is being held on board a recently delivered ship, providing Travel Agents with a sneak preview of the fleet’s latest cruiser. In fact, the Costa Deliziosa will host the “Champions of the Sea” immediately following her launch from the Fincantieri shipyard in Marghera, where she was built. Travel Agents will be the first to discover the “pure pleasure” of the Costa Deliziosa during a 5-day mini-cruise that departs from Venice en route to Savona, with calls in Naples and Leghorn. Elegant and sophisticated, the Costa Deliziosa (92,600 dwt and 2,862 guests), with premium artistic and design solutions, is the ideal setting for the event.
The best Travel Agents from around the world will be awarded during three gala evenings on the cruise in the beautiful backdrop of the Duse theatre. In particular, after the traditional welcome ceremony, the first day will mark the inauguration of the 5 “C” Wonders, the wonders of entertainment that only the Costa Deliziosa and her sister ship the Costa Luminosa can offer their Guests. Five godmothers, Travel Agents from five continents, will be the first to experience the emotions of the “C” Wonders: Tracey Thallon of Infinity and Explore Holidays from Australia for Oceania; Rossella Vatrini of Le Chateau Viaggi from Italy for Europe; Jackie Friedman of Nexion Inc. from the United States for the Americas; Amel Marrakchi of Amelvoyages from Tunisia for Africa and, finally, Jinghua Zhao of Guangzhou Merchant Travel from China for Asia.
The 5 “C” Wonders are the best that technology can offer in terms of cruiser onboard fun and entertainment: 4D cinema to dive headfirst into incredible adventures as the main character thanks to special effects and animation never offered before on a cruise ship; roller-skating track; latest generation golf simulator with outside “putting green”; Grand Prix simulator reproducing genuine race cars racing on the best circuits, the same simulator used to train real F1 drivers; and “Playstation World”, an area equipped exclusively with Playstation 3, and available in cabins “on demand”.
Another main attraction on the Costa Deliziosa, that will certainly be a real hit with travel agents, is the 3,500-m² “Samsara Spa” wellness centre with the exclusive Technogym Kinesis room.
Send us a Sea of Names
The three agencies that proposed the most appreciated pairs of names chosen by Costa Cruises relative to the initiative “Send us a sea of names” will be celebrated on the second day of the cruise. In fact, this marks the first time that Travel Agents, Customers and Web Users around the world were asked to suggest the names of the fleet’s new flagships – the Costa Favolosa and the Costa Fascinosa – which will enter service respectively in summer 2011 and spring 2012.
The first award will go to Hyun Soon Shin of Teser Travel (Perugia) who came up with the names Costa Favolosa and Costa Fascinosa. The Agent will be the guest of honour at the christening of the Costa Favolosa in 2011 and an onboard guest during the ship’s maiden voyage. The agent will also receive a “Thank-you kit” (consisting of a plaque, a personalised model and a monograph by Philippe Daverio called “Art is the ship”) along with the “Best Comfort, Best Costa Business” workstation that includes a computer with dual screen plus wi-fi keyboard and mouse, an ergonomic armchair, a table lamp and a limited series Costa Cruises pen holder.
The other two award-winning Agents will be Magali Truc (France) of the Leclerc Voyages, and Arola Sabater (Spain) of the Viatgi agency, who proposed 2 pairs of very noteworthy names. The other 25 Travel Agencies, whose proposals made it to the final short list of pairs of names, will receive special acknowledgement for their participation.
Champions of the Sea Awards
The traditional awards will be presented during 3 ceremonies attended by Costa Cruises’ top management and in particular by Costa’s Chairman and CEO Pier Luigi Foschi and President Gianni Onorato. These awards, trophies designed especially for this event, harmoniously combine the distinctive “Champions of the Sea” dolphin and the “C” of Costa Cruises. The “C” is the backdrop for the entire composition which depicts a leaping dolphin. This gold- and silver-plated creation, with a special Verona pink striped marble for the base, was made by Valenza Po.
The “Over the Top” agencies, the best overall, will also receive beautiful silver artistic creations and a bottle of Amarone Stella Aneri 2004 Special Reserve Costa Deliziosa. This wine, produced in limited quantities, is aged in one of the 15 barrels reserved for Costa’s ships. Each barrel contains enough wine to fill 133 bottles, and every bottle has a label with the name of the ship and comes with a product quality certificate.
2011 annual brochure
But that’s not all. In fact, Travel Agents will also be treated to a sneak preview of all the latest innovations in Costa Cruises’ annual 2011 brochure. The itineraries (November 2010-January 2012) of the Italian company will be presented with unprecedented advance notice, and for the first time during the Champions of the Sea cruise. The new brochure, which will soon be available in all travel agencies, presents the return of the historical “Round-the-World” cruises on board the Costa Deliziosa. During this fascinating and unique 100-day cruise, that can be divided into 3 parts (Savona – Los Angeles; Los Angeles – Singapore; Singapore – Savona), guests can experience all the thrill of circumnavigation without giving up modern-day comforts. Other new offers include 7-day winter cruises in the Red Sea, calls to Valencia, from where guests can also go to Madrid, and 7-day winter cruises in the Mediterranean.
Costa Cruises is Italy’s largest tourism group and Europe’s no. 1 cruise company. For more than 60 years its ships have plied the seas of the world, offering the best in Italian style, hospitality and cuisine and providing dream holidays with the utmost in terms of fun and relaxation. In 2009 about 1.3 million guests chose to go cruising with Costa, a record for the European cruise industry. Its fleet has a total of 15 ships, all flying the Italian flag, each with her own distinctive characteristics and unique style; together each year, they offer the chance to visit some 250 separate destinations in the Mediterranean, Northern Europe, the Baltic Sea, the Caribbean, South America, the United Arab Emirates, the Far East and the Indian Ocean. Two more new ships are due to enter service by 2012. Costa Cruises has been certified by RINA (Italian Shipping Register) with the BEST4, an integrated system of voluntary certification of corporate compliance with the highest standards governing social accountability (SA 8000, issued in 2001), environment (UNI EN ISO 14001, 2004), safety (OHSAS 18001, 2007) and quality (UNI EN ISO 9001, 2008). All the ships in the Costa fleet have been assigned RINA’s Green Star notation certifying that they are operated in compliance with the highest environmental protection standards. Costa Cruises is an official partner of WWF Italy for the protection of the Mediterranean Sea. In Mediobanca’s 2009 survey of over 3700 Italian enterprises that recorded revenue of at least 50 million euros the previous fiscal year, Costa Crociere S.p.A. ranks in 10th place as regards profitability and in 65th in terms of sales. In the “Global Reputation Pulse 2009 international study, Costa Cruises is 1st among Italian “service industry” companies; Pulse scores are a measure of the corporate reputation (in terms of trust, esteem etc) of the 600 largest enterprises located in 32 countries worldwide. Costa Crociere S.p.A. is a member of Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE/LSE: CCL; NYSE: CUK), the world’s largest cruise company.
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