As cruise ships get bigger and bigger, Ponant has stayed true to its form, building luxury expedition ships that are French flagged, with the idea “to create special relationships between the oceans of the world and people sailing on them,” said the CEO of Ponant Americas, Navin Sawhney.
Ponant’s specialization is in expedition ships, vessels that allow guests to see the most exciting and distant destinations while at the same time, thanks to their size, feeling like “you are one with the ocean and the destination that you sail in.”
“What Ponant saw as a void that we could fill was that the tastes of the consumer were changing. They wanted to go on expeditions, they wanted to understand and immerse themselves in destinations beyond [what] existed in the 80s and 90s,” Sawhney said during a virtual panel discussion.
“We were the first who purpose built ships that combined [a