Director of Cruise Baltic, Claus Bodker (right,) awards the Cruise Baltic Crown Award to Director of Itinerary Planning, Federico Bartoli (left), for adding new ports to the Costa itineraries in the Baltic Sea.
Award winner, Federico Bartoli, has worked with Costa Crociere since 2003.
Cruise Baltic has announced the winner of this year’s Cruise Baltic Crown Award. The prestigious award was won by Director of Itinerary Planning, Federico Bartoli, from Costa Crociere. He received the award for developing itineraries to new Baltic ports.
This year, the Cruise Baltic Crown Award goes to Federico Bartoli, Director of Itinerary Planning at Costa Crociere. The Italian cruise planner was awarded the price for his ability to spice up the Baltic Sea cruises with new ports.
“Federico Bartoli plays a key role when it comes to planning the Costa cruise itineraries. It has a great impact, when people in his position, show the courage to add new destinations to the more traditional itineraries. In that way more of the ports in the Baltic Sea will benefit from the cruise industry in the region,” Claus Bodker, Director of Cruise Baltic, explains.
Award winner, Federico Bartoli, has worked with Costa Crociere since 2003. He started his career in the company as an analyst in the IT-department and he actually laid the foundation for the data warehouses, which are still in use. The past five years he has been working with itinerary planning. He is still very data driven in the way he works, but at the same time he manages to put himself in the customers’ shoes. He finds the complexity of working this way both challenging and extremely rewarding.
“I am good at working with numbers and combining them with the holiday dreams of the cruise guests. I have a sort of 360-degree vision of the itinerary planning, involving both customer needs, safety, revenue opportunities and cost factors. If you change one factor it will influence other factors,” says Federico Bartoli.
He highlights that every single itinerary has its own unique story and that he, because of this, has an ongoing focus on development of the itineraries. 35-40% of Costa’s guests are repeat customers, which means that he cannot just be repeating the previous successes. And that he is always looking for new destinations suitable for Costa’s cruise guests.
In private Federico Bartoli is married and has two daughters aged 8 and 3. The family travels a lot, but because of the age of the girls, their journeys are primarily domestic and goes to e.g. Roma and Venice. Twice a year Federico Bartoli and his wife enjoys a shorter trip to more exotic destinations. Last fall the couple visited Lisbon, and this spring they will be travelling to Prague. Bartoli is an active man who enjoys combining activities with his passion for outdoor life in e.g. running, tennis and ocean swimming.
The Cruise Baltic Crown Award was launched in 2011. Each year the award is given to either an individual or an organization from the cruise industry whose efforts has made a significant contribution towards making a substantial difference to the growth of the Baltic Sea Region as a cruise destination.
Cruise Baltic is a network of cruise destinations in the Baltic Sea offering easy access to 10 countries on a string with an ‘ocean of adventures’. The network – founded in 2004 with 12 destinations – has now grown to 29 destinations.
Vicky is the co-founder of TravelDailyNews Media Network where she is the Editor-in Chief. She is also responsible for the daily operation and the financial policy. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Tourism Business Administration from the Technical University of Athens and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wales.
She has many years of both academic and industrial experience within the travel industry. She has written/edited numerous articles in various tourism magazines.
