Tauck is expecting increased interest in its river cruise sailings that feature the Floriade International Horticultural Expo in 2022 and has responded by quadrupling the number of sailings it will offer.
The once a decade horticultural event, which last took place in 2012, will be featured on four different river cruises in the coming 2022 season.
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“Our excitement is rooted in both our past experience with Floriade, and in the really incredible plans we’ve seen for the 2022 expo,” said Tauck CEO Dan Mahar. “Our guests’ interest in attending Floriade is such that we essentially—and rather quickly—sold out our entire inventory in 2012,” he explained.
Mahar also noted that the 2012 edition of Floriade drew more than 2,000,000 total visitors, or some four times the attendance at the 2010 performances of the Oberammergau Passion Play, another popular, once-a-decade event featured on Tauck river cruises.
The event is more than just a flower show. Next year’s theme is “Growing Green Cities.” It will feature events that center around green architecture and design as well as environmentally friendly food production, renewable energy and healthy living. The expo takes place in the city of Almere situated on 148 acres of land that was raised and reclaimed from the sea and the buildings and facilities constructed for the event will remain as an environmentally friendly urban center.
“An apt comparison for the 2022 Floriade and its forward-looking emphasis on the cities of tomorrow would be Walt Disney’s vision for EPCOT,” said Mahar.
Obviously, the festival will also showcase a vast array of flowers, trees, shrubs, plants and crops as well as live entertainment, themed cultural programs and exhibits, a host of international pavilions, a range of restaurants, food trucks and specialty tastings, and a diverse campus connected by gondolas, trains, bridges and walkways.
Tauck guests will have early admission and a private, guided small group tour of the expo. Ships will be able to dock in nearby Huizen, just a 10-minute drive from Floriade.
The four Tauck river cruises featuring a visit to the Floriade expo include two 15-day itineraries, “Amsterdam to Budapest by Riverboat” and “The Rhine and Moselle,” along with two eight-day trips, “Belgium & Holland in Spring” and the new-for-2021 itinerary “Cruising the Dutch Waterways.”
Mahar noted that, like the Oberammergau Passion Play, this once-a-decade event is extremely popular and those who want to attend book quickly.
“For most travelers, attending something like Floriade or the Oberammergau Passion Play is a true once-in-a-lifetime experience, and because they’re only available once every ten years, the opportunities to attend are really quite limited,” said Mahar. “Understandably, that creates a real sense of urgency among our guests that prompts them to act fast. With the Oberammergau Passion Play, we were 90 percent sold out before we started to actively promote it, and we’re fully expecting our Floriade trips to generate that same kind of response.”