Koray Savas joined MSC Group’s luxury brand from sister company MSC Cruises as VP hotel and Alban Gjoka was promoted to VP food and beverage. Both report to Explora Journeys CEO Michael Ungerer.
‘It has been nearly three months since we launched Explora I and we are now moving ahead into the next chapter of the growth of our brand. Koray and Alban both bring extensive experience and skills to our hotel and food and beverage operations respectively and they will add great value to our current ship at sea as well as to the development of the onboard experience for our upcoming five luxury ships,' commented Ungerer.
Switch from MSC Cruises
Savas has worked in the cruise industry for 22 years with the last five at MSC Cruises, most recently at the company’s headquarters in Geneva, where for two years he was a brand performance director (BPD) overseeing the hotel operations and guest experience for the line’s ships based in Asia, the Gulf region and the Mediterranean.
He was also a BPD for MSC Cruises’ world cruises in 2022 that marked for the first time two of its ships sailing the globe simultaneously and prior to his move to Geneva, Savas spent three years as VP hotel pperations Asia based in Shanghai, China.
Joining from Apollo
Gjoka joined Explora Journeys at the beginning of 2022 as senior lead culinary operation from the Apollo Group where he worked for 15 years, most recently as senior executive chef and culinary manager for Oceania Cruises, where he oversaw large-scale international food and beverage operations.
Gjoka was previously employed for five years by another luxury cruise company in a range of food and beverage roles, lastly as culinary director, where he was involved in leading the food and beverage strategy.
