SCENIC Group is heading “back to the future” with its product, as demand for land touring rises, and the company’s two brands, Scenic and Emerald, pursue greater synergies.
Aussie booking demand continues to grow, as Scenic continues its heavy investment in the cruise sector.
“As a group now, we are definitely looking at where can we complement each other,” Emerald Director Sales & Marketing Angus Crichton said.
“We’ve got Scenic, your ultra-luxury, all-inclusive brand, and then where does Emerald fit in, where has it evolved to fit into the Scenic group jigsaw?”
Crichton told CW travellers frequently disembark their cruise seeking more land exploration.
The trend is particularly prevalent in Europe, Crichton noted, where passengers would seek out another tour operator if there is no Scenic and Emerald option available.
“How do we make this a one-stop-shop, full service, and make sure that our land journeys can be linked to all our cruising?” Crichton considered.
One example is Scenic’s Grand Journeys (CW 08 May) – product which was not previously packaged, and is now being sold as one itinerary.
These include voyages of almost 90 days in length, visiting bucket-list destinations such as Antarctica and Patagonia.
The result has been larger receipts and a larger booking curve, Scenic Group GM Sales & Marketing Anthony Laver said.
“What we didn’t expect is that ’25 would be even stronger than ’24, and the forward bookings that we were getting back-to-back,” he told Cruise Weekly.
Laver said one receipt now often metastasises as a cruise and a land tour, or a land tour with a back-to-back cruise.
“We can see the demand curve is pushed into ’26 and ’27.”
Scenic last year also relaunched its Evergreen Tours product as ‘Emerald Tours’ (CW 22 Mar 2024), effectively folding the legacy brand into its newer, faster-growing sister brand.
This also helped cut down on the number of brands Scenic Group was operating.
“We are now not activating the Evergreen brand – it has been put on ice,” Laver confirmed.
“It tended to cater to a much more mature audience and it sort of never really evolved as a younger cohort.” MS
