5 6 INTERIOR V IEW Azora Douglas Prothero tells Susan Parker why partnerships have been pivotal in helping The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection to create the interiors of its first luxury cruise yacht When The Ritz-Carlton Collection decided to launch its first cruise ships, it chose Tillberg Design of Sweden (TDoS) as the lead designer, largely because the company already had experience of working on the Ritz-Carlton brand’s hotels. This fact alone marks The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection out from the majority of the cruise industry. “Being the largest hotelier in the world brings a whole lot of resources that you could never afford to have at a big cruise line, never mind when you’re building your first yacht,” says Douglas Prothero, CEO of The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection. The collaboration with TDoS in respect of the 298-guest yachts began six years ago: “We’d worked together before and it’s been a partnership the entire way,” says Prothero. “We did a lot of focus group work with luxury travel agents and luxury travellers so that we could define where we belong in this space. We included our designers in those groups because we think of them as partners in our guest experience. For example, TDoS spent several days with us at the Aqua restaurant at The RitzCarlton Wolfsburg hotel in Germany to get inspiration for Azora’s restaurant.” Cutting corners is not an option when it comes to this level of luxury and the interiors are no exception. TDoS has taken inspiration from the clean lines of Scandinavian design, so there will be no cluttered interiors. “The art of creating beautiful interiors is in the design, so we’re really talking about spending money on the accents,”
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