A&K appoints New Zealand cruise manager as business booms

When CLIA Australasia md Joel Katz released New Zealand’s 2016 source market report last May, he said the country was one of only four international markets to record a double-digit increase. Katz said passenger numbers had increased 36% to a record 90,184 and that New Zealand’s market penetration equated to almost 2%, ranking it sixth in the world.

Tourism and hospitality veteran

Kerr is a 25-year veteran of the tourism and hospitality industry, which has included seven years at sea where he was a purser with Princess Cruises. Most recently he was logistics manager for ID New Zealand.

Last year he made a five-month 3,100km solo walk the length of New Zealand, from Bluff to Cape Reinga, raising funds for the St John ambulance service. 

‘Walking the length of New Zealand has really made him an expert on tour possibilities,’ David Vass, A&K’s svp worldwide cruise business and operations, said.

Vass has been to Auckland and has had strategy meetings with Kerr. He has also been to Melbourne where he hosted  an ‘appreciation lunch’ for A&K’s Australian team for the company’s biggest season since it created a cruise division in 2006 and for winning the 2017 Seatrade Cruise Award for Innovative Shorex of the Year.

LifeStraw involvement

Before returning to the United States on Wednesday, he is meeting with cruise line executives in Sydney and talking about A&K’s involvement with LifeStraw, the filter equipment that makes contaminated water safe to drink.

Vass said the company has plans to introduce LifeStraw to remote regions in Australia and New Zealand and he hopes to present a model of the filtration system at the 2018  annual conferences of the New Zealand Cruise Association and the Australian Cruise Association.