easy cruise
 

easyCruise to launch in Far East next March


LONDON (AFX) - easyCruise, the latest no-frills offering by Stelios Haji-Ioannou's easyGroup, is to launch low-cost cruising next March to destinations across the Far East.

easyCruise will trial six, one-week cruises in the Far Eastern Tropics next March and April, easyGroup said in a statement.

"If the trial of the far eastern itinerary proves successful, Singapore might become the permanent winter base of easyCruise I, the first easyCruise ship," it added.

In a break from easyGroup tradition, easyCruise said it was considering using travel agents to sell tickets, rather than exclusively over the Internet.

"Given how much interest easyCruise has generated... I think consumers will be going to their normal travel agent asking to be booked on an easyCruise," said Stelios Haji-Ioannou, easyGroup chairman and founder of budget airline easyJet.

He first announced the easyCruise project in February, with the order of a 250-passenger cruise ship. Cruise tickets were to sell for as low as 29 stg per night aboard the 1990 Italian-built cruise liner.

But it will be a far cry from the all-inclusive luxury travel that habitual cruise-takers may be used to.

Once on board an easyCruise ship, all food and entertainment must be paid for, and passengers will have to clean up their own compact-sized cabins before disembarking or else face a surcharge.