Less than a month before sending his Fleet Rent-a-Car company to bankruptcy, and a few months after he ended Compass Zagreb travel agency’s operations in the same way, Matko Bolanča left the Kompas Cruise project, leaving it to his former partner Roman Reicher, who is determined to develop a business with luxury cruises in the Adriatic Sea. One of his partners is DIV Cruises, owned by Tomislav Debeljak, reports Poslovni.hr on January 7, 2019.
Reicher admits that such a start to doing business is not easy, which is why he is thinking about changing the name of the company. Still, he believes that eight Kompas Cruise employees can launch projects they have planned. “We have founded Kompas Cruise with the intention of developing the incoming segment in the luxury cruise business. From the very beginning, we started open communication with partners who have shown understanding, and the start of the 2019 booking gives us reasons to be optimistic. Of course, every start is difficult, especially in the circumstances in which we find ourselves, but I hope we can justify the trust of all our partners,” explained Reicher.
In a few weeks, the new website of Kompas Cruise will be launched, offering luxury cruises in the Adriatic. Reicher revealed that they would be the first Croatian company to operate international tours through four or five countries, from Venice to Kotor and Albania.
They will sail from April to October with a total of six ships with guaranteed departures, including three vessels owned by Debeljak. The tours will be sold to distant markets in the United States, New Zealand, Australia.
DIV Cruises is a relatively young company, resulting from the desire of the DIV Group to expand its operations in the sector of luxury cruise ships. The partnership agreement with Kompas Cruise will be implemented in such a way that both companies will sell and book their partner’s ships. “In this way, both our and their ships will be booked faster. Because of the synergy and the fact that ships will reach a larger number of potential customers, this will bring a win-win effect,” explained Robert Sedlar, the CEO of DIV Cruises.
His company cooperates with numerous other Croatian companies like Katarina Line, Amathus Travel and Unlimited Croatia. “Almost all of our agencies which deal with the incoming side of the business have all our ships in their offer. We are particularly pleased to see that they have all recognized the uniqueness of our ships. Another reason for satisfaction is the fact that we have managed to enter the offer of most serious foreign partners in 2019, which was very difficult because such deals are usually made a year or two in advance,” explained Sedlar. They have also fulfilled the goal of having year-round operations of their ships in 2020 and 2021.
More news about sailing in Croatia can be found in our Travel section.
Translated from Poslovni.hr (reported by Marija Crnjak).
