its senior management with two appointments after the introduction of the first of six ships.

Koray Savas moves from sister company MSC Cruises as hotel vice president while Alban Gjoka has been promoted to food and beverage vice president.

Savas has worked in the cruise industry for 22 years with the last five at MSC Cruises, most recently at the company’s Geneva headquarters as a brand performance director overseeing the hotel operations and passenger experience for the line’s ships based in Asia, the Gulf region and the Mediterranean.

He was also a brand performance director for the line’s world cruises in 2022 – the first time two of its ships sailed the globe simultaneously.

Gjoka joined Explora Journeys last year as senior lead culinary operation from US cruse line hospitality management firm Apollo Group where he worked for 15 years, most recently as senior executive chef and culinary manager for an unnamed luxury cruise company.

Explora Journeys chief executive Michael Ungerer said: “It has been nearly three months since we launched our first ship 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 lu