In a week which saw Viking River Cruises win the Best River Cruise Line title for an impressive fifth year running at the British Travel Awards 2013, I thought it would be fitting to take a look at the history of this highly successful company.
It’s difficult to keep count of the number of vessels operated by Viking River Cruises, as if you’re a regular visitor to theses blog pages, you’ll know that the line regularly announces plans to expand its fleet. Currently however, the line operates 37 different vessels on a wide range of itineraries throughout Europe, Russia, Ukraine, China and Southeast Asia. The Viking Longships, which feature the line’s most innovative design features, currently comprise two thirds of the fleet.
The history of Viking River Cruises can be traced back to the mid 1990’s when its chairman and founder, Torstein Hagen, took a Russian river cruise and thought it would be a good idea to found his own river cruise company, so others could share the experience which he had enjoyed. It wasn’t something Hagen leaped into without experience however, as he had been CEO of the now defunct Royal Viking Line and was also a board member at Holland America Line.
Fittingly, the company’s first ships, purchased in 1997, were Russian and in 2000 it acquired a large portion of the long-established KD River Cruises, bringing its number of vessels to 26, meaning that, even 13 years ago, it owned more vessels than any other river cruise line. With the KD acquisition came more docks, meaning that the line was able to offer a large number of convenient European docks for its passengers.
2004 saw expansion into China with Yangtze river cruises and cruise tours which took in such key Far East cities as Shanghai and Beijing, closely followed by Southeast Asia and a range of Mekong itineraries.
What’s next for Viking River Cruises? Well, there have been recent reports that the line plans to launch vessels on the Mississippi River but the even bigger news is that Viking River Cruises is to launch an Ocean Cruising division, with its first ocean cruise ship, The Viking Star, set to debut in 2015, operating both Mediterranean and Baltic itineraries.
By Simon Brotherton
Google
