Regent Seven Seas is Cleaning House…and Mark Conroy is Where?

It has always baffled me how Regent, a small cruise line with only three ships (and, for the time being a fourth on a charter) could require so many people and be so inaccessible and have so many “policies” and, therefore, inefficiencies.

Prestige Cruise Holdings has been working to take the General Motors approach out of Regent Seven Seas and I think it is coming down to, but has not yet taken, its final moves. It announced today that the sales force has been, in large part, asked to resign.

More specifically, Maggie Mantia (charter and incentive sales vice president) David Levene (Eastern regional director of field sales), Joyce Simon (Western regional director), Janet Ganch (Director of sales for Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia) and Rose Clarke (Director of on-board sales and loyalty, including the Seven Seas Society) have all departed. To me that says that a lot of inefficiencies are simply being cut out.

But to me that is not the news. What is it you ask?

The announcement was not made by Mark Conroy, its president. Rather it was made by Prestige Cruise Holdings, the parent of Regent Seven Seas. (I believe these moves were made while he is still in Europe “dealing” with the Voyager problems.) Therefore, I must ask the burning question, “When is a company president not a president?” I think we know the answer.

On March 4, 2009 I posted a rather scathing post that it was time for Mark Conroy to be fired: http://goldringtravel.blogspot.com/2009/02/is-it-time-for-mark-conroy-to-depart.html. It seems to me that I am not the only one who thinks it is time.

In fact, I think the negotiations are probably underway.