SARTORI & BERGER Embarks on 2013 Cruise Season with Call of AIDAstella at Hamburg

German maritime services provider SARTORI & BERGER is embarking on the 2013 cruise season in Germany today (12th March) by attending a call of the AIDAstella in Hamburg. In a few days the company will again be at the service of this ship upon her christening at Rostock. The event is just one of several highlights for SARTORI & BERGER during the forthcoming nine months.

"Today's call of the AIDAstella at Hamburg indicates the starting point of very exciting and at the same time challenging season", says Simone Tommaso Maraschi, General Manager and Head of Cruise Services at SARTORI & BERGER who is currently attending the Cruise Shipping Miami Convention, " 2013 will become a record year for us, as the first time in our history, the number of calls and Kiel-Canal transits of cruise ship attended by SARTORI & BERGER is going to be over 550. Other highlights of the company's 2013 cruise season will include the maiden call of the MSC Musica at Kiel (25th April), the return of Carnival Cruise Line to Ger- many with the "Carnival Legend" (calling Rostock-Warnemuende on six occasions) and a very busy period with numerous cruise ship calls to Hamburg during the Harbour Anniversary in May. Yet not only Germany's main cruise hubs are facing interesting calls and events attended by SARTORI & BERGER: "Germany's small ports and islands remain much in demand among cruise lines", says Simone Tommaso Maraschi, pointing at a special event due to take place in Flensburg, Germany's northernmost mainland city located within sighting distance from the Danish borderline: "On 10th and 11th May we are going to be in charge of 'The World' when she visits Flensburg on her maiden call. It is an existing event. Flensburg has established it- self nationally as a cruise destination since 2005, with Hapag-Lloyd Kreuzfahrten and Deilmann as loyal repeat customers since. "

2013 will also see further internal improvement at SARTORI & BERGER. "We just launched a new, completely redesigned website with additional tools and services for our corporate cli- ents", announces Maraschi, "it is certainly worth a look. We have also implemented a new intranet solution administrating all our staff involved with cruise ship calls. This helps us to ensure that we have always the right number of staff speaking the required languages on hand when a ship calls, and it enables us to respond to short-notice customer enquiries for additional staff or personnel speaking a particular language". At the same time
the implementation of this new tool has helped SARTORI & BERGER to work more efficiently, an important pre-condition to keep agency rates stable in times of rising costs. "We know the market is highly competitive, and we are certainly ready to meet this challenge – of course without accepting any constraints with regard to quality and safety", Simone Tommaso Maraschi concludes. In an attempt to ensure total quality and continuous improvement, SARTORI & BERGER has recently extended its ISO 9001:2000 QMS to its Shore Excursion & Ground Handling Division. At the same time, a Safety and Health Management System has also been implemented