Silversea's Miami team will be moving to Royal Caribbean headquarters

'We created space for them,' said Jason Liberty, EVP/CFO Royal Caribbean Group, who oversees Silversea. Now that it's a fully owned brand within the corporation, being closer will create a higher level of interaction, he added, and 'We look forward to helping them in any way we can.'

More synergies

'We've had great success by working together but by actually being together we can create more synergies,' said Silversea's Mark Conroy, managing director, the Americas.

Azamara leaving

With Azamara leaving for its own location as an independent company and Royal Caribbean Group's pandemic reorganization, that created space for the well more than 100 Silversea Miami employees.

This coincided with an opportunity for Silversea to exit its lease in the Wells Fargo Center, a Class A office tower in the upscale Brickell area that's been home to the team since late 2015 when they relocated from Fort Lauderdale.

'As lovely as it is, it's a space better designed for a law firm or an accounting firm,' Conroy said.

According to Liberty, Silversea now has more employees in South Florida than its Monaco headquarters, or very close to that number.

Miami-based positions include reservations, operations, sales, marketing, administration and itinerary planning.

Help with sales representation

'As we become integrated, we're working very closely with our sister companies,' Conroy said. He noted how Vicki Freed, SVP sales sales and trade support & service, Royal Caribbean International, is enabling her sales force to also sell Silversea. 'So we've got 17 salespeople plus access to the largest sales team in the cruise industry as one example of working together,' he continued.

Remote call center support

Another is Celebrity Cruises' providing space in its Kansas City call center for some Silversea agents. Previously, when hurricanes threatened South Florida, Silversea would have to dispatch reservations staff to a remote hotel location and set them up in a meeting room. That will no longer be necessary.

Silversea is the first in the Royal Caribbean Group to bring back its US-based employees who've been working remotely during the pandemic. There is no vaccination mandate in the office but Conroy said most employees are vaccinated.