Major cruise line Virgin Voyages is debuting a month-long workation cruise, blurring the lines between work and play by offering remote employees the chance to ‘work, travel and eat their way through Europe’.
The Scarlet Summer Season Pass tackles one of the biggest issues plaguing cruise-based workers, by offering the ‘fastest Wi-Fi at sea’, alongside a range of amenities like spin classes and Michelin-inspired menus.
Whether the idea of working from a cruise floats your boat or not, as flexible working continues to be the new employment gold standard and young professionals keep being tempted by sunnier shores, it’s likely the workation trend won’t be budging any time soon. Read on to learn more about Virgin Voyage’s new cruise.
Virgin Debuts Scarlet Summer Season Pass For Remote Workers
While tuning into a Zoom call from the middle of the Mediterranean might sound like a sackable offense, British cruise line Virgin Voyages has launched a new cruise package designed specifically for remote employees.
The Scarlet Summer Season Pass offers wanderlust yuppies the chance to travel the coastline of Southern Europe without using up their annual leave – with stops on the itinerary including glamorous destinations like Cannes, Palma de Mallorca, and Ajaccio in Corsica.
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“No longer does working from home mean being tied to a desk or home office and eating leftovers for lunch,” – Virgin Voyages CEO Nirmal Saverimuttu
The adults-only cruise also offers just about all the amenities remote workers could find on land, including group yoga and HIIT classes, daily coffee credits, and an in-house laundry service. But the real kicker is the ship’s new integrated Starlink PRO Wi-Fi service.
Unlike the majority of Virgin Voyages Cruise passes, Scarlet Summer passengers have unlimited access to the Wi-Fi service, which claims to be the “fastest at sea”. This gives Virgin Voyages a huge leg up over competitors, with sluggish internet speeds and pricey packages deterring many curious travelers from taking workation cruises.
Virgin Isn’t The First Cruise Line to Cater to Employees
Virgin Voyages may be one of the first major commercial cruise liners to launch an employee-focused package, but the concept of working your 9-5 while sailing the seas is nothing new.
Nomad Cruise is a digital nomad cruise line that has been organizing trips for remote workers since 2015. The cruise line – which claims to be the ‘world’s first floating Digital Nomad Conference’ – gives employees and entrepreneurs a chance to network, skill-share, and make friends, while exploring exotic locations from Japan to the Arctic circle.
As cruise lines scramble to tap new markets after the pandemic, lots of other big names have made their service more palatable to remote workers too. For example, Miami-based cruise line Azamara launched a ‘Work & Wander’ package last November, offering passengers access to office equipment, IT support, and high-speed internet and an increasing number of mainstream liners like Royal Caribbean have begun offering Starlink WiFi to cruisers.
Workations Are Here to Stay
Whether or not a floating office is something that appeals to you, blurring the lines between work and leisure is proving to be a savvy business move for cruise liners, especially at a time when 35% of US workers have the freedom to work remotely.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to do my work from anywhere. When I started Virgin, I was actually working out of a houseboat. I’ve never thought of work and play as two different things, it’s all just living.” – Richard Branson CEO of Virgin
Virgin Voyages Scarlet Summer Season Pass was inspired by its founder Richard Branson’s philosophy of combining work and play – a sentiment shared by many members of the rising digital nomad population. Moving away from the notion that employees need to be chained to a desk to be productive, workations give workers the chance to explore new horizons without stagnating in their careers.
You don’t need to be sea-bound to partake in the trend either. According to data from Google Trends, searches for the term increased by 458% in 2023 compared to 2018, suggesting that more workers than ever are trading in the workplace with sandy shores.
But if you’ve caught the travel bug but your workplace policy doesn’t let you work from anywhere, rest assured. Here are some jobs that are perfect for digital nomads in 2024.
