This was the message from chair of the new organisation and director and cofounder of Latin Routes and Polar Routes Martin Johnson, who spoke to TTG ahead of the ECN’s launch on Monday (17 April). 

"We’re appealing to all travel sellers in the UK – high street agents, homeworkers, tour operators, independents," Johnson said.

"We’ll be inviting travel sellers to join us and we’ve got a short questionnaire for them to answer so we can understand what level of expedition cruise knowledge they have and tailor our content accordingly."

Johnson assured the ECN will focus and champion on "all aspects" of expedition cruising, and not just polar trips.

"As a network, we want to showcase and highlight this type of travel and all of the places where you can take an expedition cruise," he added.

"The polar regions are undoubtedly a large portion of that market, but there are so many other amazing places the sector serves, such as the Kimberleys, New Guinea, Asia – a lot of cruise lines have an expedition programme beyond the polar regions."

Johnson said the concept of the ECN was born from conversations with expedition cruise lines he had in his roles with Polar Routes. 

"It didn’t feel like there was a dedicated space that was relevant just to expedition, because a lot of the time expedition is put on the side of either ocean or river," he concluded.