Lindblad Expeditions has bought a small cruiseship that Crystal Cruises recently deemed as too small for its operations.
The Nasdaq-listed expedition cruise operator has emerged as the buyer of the 3,370-gt, 62-passenger cruiseship Crystal Esprit (built 1991), according to IHS Markit data.
Lindblad confirmed the purchase on Monday, without elaborating.
"Nothing else to share at this point," spokeswoman Patty Disken-Cahill told TradeWinds. "Further details will be announced as they are finalised."
The vessel is one of the very few expedition ships to change hands since cruise’s pandemic shutdown.
The niche market has, according to recent comments from senior Lindblad executives, proven to be extremely resilient.
Crystal said in early September that it would be withdrawing the Crystal Esprit from service with immediate effect, claiming the small vessel did not fitted into its future plans that concentrated on larger oceangoing ships and river cruising.
Lindblad has yet to announce the acquisition of the ship, although over the weekend its ownership was switched in the IHS Ships Register from Crystal to Lex Esprit Ltd, a Lindblad subsidiary.
Its addition brings the Lindblad fleet to 10 vessels ranging in size from the 630-gt National Geographic Sea Lion (built 1982) to the 12,800-gt sisterships National Geographic Endurance (built 2020) and National Geographic Resolution (built 2021).
During a quarterly results briefing in August, Lindblad president and chief executive Dolf Berle indicated that while the company had only returned four of its cruiseships to service this year, forward bookings were strong.
“Bookings for year 2022 are at historic levels with just more revenue booked at this point for travel in the upcoming year than ever before,” Berle said, adding that Lindblad had over $200m in cash on its balance sheet.
In August, the company’s bookings for 2022 were 36% ahead of where we were for August 2021, and 36% ahead of August 2020.
“This strong year-on-year trends now include guests on cancelled voyages that have opted to reschedule, but they only make up about 20% of our bookings for 2022. There is no question that there is significant pent-up demand,” added chief financial officer Craig Felenstein.
Ample liquidity
Felenstein said that while it would take some time for the company to fully regain its pre-pandemic momentum, the investments it made made during this period to expand fleet capacity and diversify product offerings positioned it to drive significant growth over the next few years as it capitalised on the growing demand for adventure travel.
“In the short term, we have ample liquidity to ramp up operations and weather any immediate uncertainties and while still having the flexibility to explore additional growth opportunities,” he added.
Berle took over his leadership roles from Sven-Olaf Lindblad in May, when the company founder assumed the position of co-chairman of the board.
The resilience of the expedition cruise market has seen operators hold on to their ships throughout the pandemic period while many of their peers in more mainstream sectors of cruise have shed them in droves.
The only oceangoing example sold was Silversea Cruises’ 4,200-gt, 100-passenger Silver Galapagos (built 1990), which was bought in January for conversion into a private yacht.
Michael Juliano contributed to this story.
