Live From ILTM: Cutting Through the “Sea of Sameness"—Catherine Powell’s Vision for AmaWaterways

AmaWaterways is expanding river cruising’s appeal beyond its traditional audience, drawing in solo travelers, active families, and wellness-focused guests who are discovering this style of travel for the first time.

In this ILTM (International Luxury Travel Market) episode, recorded live in Cannes, Catherine Powell, the new CEO of AmaWaterways, joins Afar editor in chief Julia Cosgrove to reveal the brand’s fresh visual identity and expansion plans, including eight new European ships and pioneering Colombian routes.

Catherine brings expertise from Disney Parks and Airbnb to the family-founded company, applying her knowledge of memorable guest experiences to river cruising.

Under her leadership since early 2025, AmaWaterways is cutting through the “sea of sameness” with distinctive branding and curated experiences, from Smithsonian journeys to Soulful Experiences cruises celebrating Black culture. The conversation also explores the brand’s pioneering spirit—and how it maintains intimacy while scaling.

Transcript

Julia: I’m Julia Cosgrove, vice president and editor in chief of Afar. And welcome to View From Afar, a podcast that spotlights the people and the ideas shaping the future of travel. In this special series, I’m coming to you live from ILTM, one of the most important travel shows that happens every year. ILTM stands for the International Luxury Travel Market, and the show takes place in a fittingly luxurious city, Cannes, France.

The conversations that happen here influence how we think about travel for years to come. Afar cofounder Joe Diaz and I sat down with leaders across the travel industry, from visionary hoteliers to destination innovators, to discuss the trends, challenges, and ideas that are driving hospitality forward. We want to understand what truly motivates these leaders, how their personal stories, values, and visions shape the experiences they create for travelers. You’ll hear each of those conversations over the coming week.

In this episode, I’m talking to Catherine Powell, the president and CEO of AmaWaterways. Catherine stepped into the CEO role in early 2025, succeeding cofounder Rudi Schreiner as he moved to chairman of the board. With a background at major brands like Disney and Airbnb, Catherine is guiding AmaWaterways through a transformation. She wants to bring river cruising to new destinations, elevate guest experiences and translate the brand’s heritage into next‑generation luxury. We’ll talk about how she’s navigating the evolution of river travel, what defines the modern luxury cruise experience, and where AmaWaterways is headed under her leadership.

Welcome, Catherine, to ILTM and the Afar studio. We’re so happy you’re here.

Catherine: Thank you. I’m delighted to be here on a very sunny day in Cannes.

Julia: A beautiful day in the south of France. So I just stepped into the Palais and got to catch a little sneak peek of Ama’s new branding. I noticed some new colors, a little fresh vibe. Tell us a little bit about it. What prompted the evolution?

Catherine: This is really hot off the press—this is our soft launch. We haven’t officially launched the brand, but we were excited to use the opportunity at ILTM to reveal it. It’s a new look and it’s very exciting. It’s something we’ve been working on for a while now. River cruising is exploding at the moment. There is so much excitement about it and there’s a lot of activity. There’s a lot of competitors, a lot of people entering the market, and we really felt it was time for a refresh for the brand and to create a visual identity that really cut through. There is a sea of sameness. There’s a lot of maritime metaphors I see that you use having worked in river cruising, but there’s a lot of blue, there’s a lot of gold. It’s actually quite difficult to cut through.

And it was really important for us to have a brand that was instantly recognizable as Ama, which we believe ours is, has a different color, has a different font, it has a different logo. But most importantly, it stands for what Ama has always stood for, which is this incredible, thoughtful, high-quality, high-touch experience that makes you feel very connected to the places that you visit. And that was really important to the work that we’ve done, was very focused on what is it that we absolutely love and want to protect about the brand? We did a huge amount of consumer research beforehand. What do we want to make sure that we keep the same? What do we make sure that we evolve and what do we want to feel different? So it was very, very thoughtfully done. We think it looks incredibly elegant. Yeah. It’s warm and the colors are different. So we’re really excited and it’s great to have this soft launch.

Julia: There’s nothing that I love more about making Afar print magazine than working with our creative director and just constantly evaluating, wow, is it time? Is it time to really go big here? Little tweaks. So I know it’s a very gratifying thing to see that baby get out into the world.

So you joined AmaWaterways after roles at Disney, Airbnb, two very different corners of the travel world. How has your background shaped how you lead a family-founded river cruise company?

Catherine: Yeah, so I spent 15 years at Disney, and the latter half of that was spent in the parks. And obviously there it is all about the guest experience. It’s all about creating magical memories. You know, you feel something that you remember for the rest of your life. It’s an experience that touches people.

If you have been to a Disney park, which I’m sure you have, and you see how the cast members are able to make those guests feel. Whatever the rides are that you’ve been on, it’s that cast member interaction that is what you take home with you.

Airbnb, it’s all about hosts creating that incredible guest experience and making people feel cared for. And that is 100 percent transferable and relevant to what we’re doing at AmaWaterways. And in fact, at Airbnb, when I was working with hosts, I was recruiting hosts and training hosts. We deconstructed the art of hosting, which was like going back to the roots of hospitality. And what are the core elements from the welcome, the communication, the care, the surprise and delight, that moment of goodbye? What is it that makes the perfect trip? And again, this is absolutely something that is transferable to Ama.

And I see that with AmaWaterways, you travel on our ships and how the crew make you feel from the moment you book a trip on Ama, we want it to feel special. And when of course, you’re on a ship and you’re traveling in the places that we take you to, that connection, that human connection, that connection with the communities and with the people that you meet there. That is very, very important to our brand. And that’s something that I have a lot of experience from that I will bring and hopefully help bring value to Ama.

Julia: So just before the pandemic, I sailed with AmaWaterways with my two little kids. You guys made a lovely exception for me to bring my little kids with me. And I will never forget the first night, we’re dining in the dining room and my younger daughter, Margaux fell asleep, basically falling into her bowl of ice cream, and the crew could not have been nicer and more accommodating. And we just, we had so many interesting conversations with the crew while we were on board about all the places they were from and their personal experiences just traveling the world, so I do. I felt that very acutely as a guest.

Catherine: That’s wonderful to hear, especially, I mean, we have more and more children, more and more families and multi-generational coming. My first cruise on Ama was Tulip Time, which is so special. And there were lots of mothers and daughters. There are grandparents taking their grandchildren. There were groups of sisters celebrating their 40th birthday, three sisters, and then three sisters celebrating one 70th, which was wonderful to see. But you bring that sense of family.

You talked about it being, you know, family founded, family owned for a long, you know, 23 years. And that sense of family is something that is imbued in the brand and the crew feed it. And they are so proud to represent Ama.

Julia: Yeah. And that comes across. I know that river cruising is changing fast from the guests coming aboard to how the ships are being designed. What trends now that you’ve stepped into this role, are you watching most closely, and how is Ama adapting to meet them?

Catherine: Well, I mean, the biggest is the explosion in river cruising. And people are discovering river cruising and discovering just what an incredible way it is to travel and to visit cities and towns and villages and nature.

And so one of the, you know, the first things talking about the brand is we want to cut through. And as people discover river cruising, we want them to discover Ama. That’s a core driver for the brand refresh that we’ve been doing. So we’re excited about the general trend of cruise being so popular. Obviously, there’s other ocean cruises and now river cruising, which is great. And so we want to be there and we want to make sure that our brand cuts through. We want to make sure that we have a growing fleet to meet the growing demand. So we’ve, we have a ship that we are launching on the Rhine in January 2026, the AmaSophia. We have three ships in 2027. We have a brother ship to the AmaMagna brother ship because it’s the AmaRudi named after our cofounder, Rudi.

Julia: Oh good. I’m glad Rudi’s getting his due.

Catherine: Rudi is getting his representation and his acknowledgement aboard the AmaRudi, which will be another double width, will be fantastic on the Danube. And then we will have the AmaPhora on the Rhine. And then we have what will be our second ship in the Mekong, the AmaMaya, to join the AmaDora, and on top of that, I recently announced a new ships in Europe that we are building.

So there is a lot of activity with a lot of supply to meet the demand. And I’m being very focused on making sure that Ama is there securing shipyards. You know, it’s competitive, shipyards and everything that goes with the construction process. So there’s growth, there’s our brand, there’s growth, and then there’s understanding who is traveling.

We see multi-generational that we talked about. And so we want to make sure that we have the right experiences for families. We have, I mentioned Tulip Time. We have a partnership with Disney and we have Adventures by Disney. And so we know that lots of families come and do wonderful experiences. And we have cruises, for example, the Christmas markets, which are magical, great time for families to go on. And the kids just love Christmas onboard the ships. We have more solo travelers and we are very, very thoughtful about how we welcome solo travelers onboard. They get given their own tour so they meet each other. We make sure that our tables, for example, will have a fifth chair, often at the table, so you can join others, or you can sit on your own if you want.

And we will make sure also the experiences people can really choose to do the experiences on Ama that really suit them. So if you are active, for example, we’ll make sure that there are different levels of activity, but we also want to make sure that, that solo travelers feel welcome. They feel part of the family. New Year is another example of where it’s an amazing place to celebrate. Onboard we have our gala, and if you don’t want to be alone at home, or you don’t want to be the one you know who is alone with the family at a time like that, you can celebrate onboard the ship and see the fireworks and be close to a city that’s also celebrating. So it’s really, really special.

And then there are communities who want to travel with like-minded people who share interests and passions. So I mentioned, you know, wellness and activities. We have a great partnership with Backroads, in fact, and we can curate cruises around wellness. We have our wine and our beer, but we also have soulful cruises now that are for those who want to celebrate Black culture and heritage. We have Latin Touch, which is Spanish speaking and has a bit of a celebration of Latin culture. We have a partnership with Smithsonian for those who want to learn more or have more of a kind of intellectual bent to the cruise. So we’re really ensuring that we can bring people together who are like-minded, who share a passion for music or for wine, or for beer or for wellness. And we can serve that and we can curate the experiences around that. So we’re constantly looking to understand who is traveling, who wants to travel, who’s discovering river cruising, and how can we make sure that their experience is really special and personalized for them.

Julia: And it sounds like very inclusive in an intuitive way. So you have that fifth chair at the table available to somebody without pushing it.

Catherine: And they have a choice. It’s all I mean, we want to make sure that people feel that they have the choices and they’re not herded off to do an experience. We absolutely have experiences which lots of people want to go to. If you do Tulip Time, you’re going to go to Keukenhof Gardens and see the incredible tulips, and you’re going to go on a coach to go with everyone else to do that. And I did that. I mean, I absolutely loved it, but you can also go and do much smaller, more intimate experiences. You can learn to make chocolate, or you can go to factories and learn about the painting of the beautiful ceramics. And you can do that in smaller, more intimate groups. So we want to make sure there’s a choice.

Julia: When we traveled, I was with my mom, my husband, my kids. I mean, he went off on a bike one day. The Backroads program, I think is so great. My mom would be more interested in the Smithsonian options, and I feel like you guys did have that sort of offering for everyone to. And I got stuck with the kids, but that’s OK.

Catherine: OK. Well, you didn’t sort that out very well. There’s no forward planning in that one. But, but that’s the point of multi-generational. Imagine if you are particularly, which we see more and more, you know, grandparents taking multi-generations on holiday, different levels of activity, different ages of children. You need to plan for all of that. If you come on a river cruise, they do it all for you. You have such a choice of experiences and as you, the crew, are fantastic with children looking after children.

Julia: Absolutely. Tell me a little bit more about the wellness programming, because that is something that I think about with Ama, that you guys have a strong record there.

Catherine: We are pioneers in so many things. It’s part of the legacy of the brand, really. From his early days on the on the Amazon, we are a pioneering brand and pioneering is about being first. So first with the double-width ship, first in Colombia, or at least for 60 years, first with wellness hosts. So every ship has a wellness host, every ship has a wellness program, starting from early morning yoga and stretches to the bike rides and hikes with the wellness hosts.

And as I said earlier, we are very thoughtful about the different levels of physical abilities that our guests have that range hugely. And so we will make sure that for every hike or walk, there are options for the gentle walker, as we call them. And the more active walkers. Our wellness hosts are incredible about looking after guests and recognizing exactly what they need. And then we will also curate more experiences when we have not just Backroads who will bring their guides and their bikes with them, but we will make sure that if we have a group who wants to be more focused on yoga, and often we will have yoga teachers who have their own followers who come with a group, we’ll make sure that they have the right accessories there or the right equipment that they want to do. We’ll make sure that we can bring on extra things like sound balls if they want to do sound baths, more gym equipment. So we’re very, very, we have almost like a kind of menu for those who want to be more active onboard. So it’s a big focus, and it’s something that everybody at every age is so focused on now.

Julia: Yeah. Shifting gears a little bit, what do you think people misunderstand about river cruising?

Catherine: I think it is a general lack of familiarity, first of all. So I don’t think it’s everyone thinking like, I know about river cruising and it’s this. I think they don’t know about river cruising. And I think what we are so excited about, what I am so excited about at the moment, with all the activity in the area, is that more people are understanding what river cruising is. So the first thing is that they are becoming more familiar and as they learn more about it, they are understanding that it is really about staying in a beautiful boutique hotel that takes you effortlessly into the heart of the cities that you visit, and then you have all your experience and your excursions that take you in and immerse you in the culture of that city. But there’s no issue with trains or car parking or cars or traffic or any of that. We really do look after you. You really do go and unpack once and everything is dealt with, and I think people don’t realize that is even an option. So I don’t think it’s so much a misunderstanding. I think it’s just a total lack of familiarity, and we are just so excited that everyone is learning about it and loving it when they do experience it.

Julia: It’s a gift and it’s seamless.

Catherine: Yeah, it truly is.

Julia: Start to finish.

Catherine: Yeah.

Julia: So looking ahead, where do you see the biggest opportunities for innovation in river cruising?

Catherine: So innovation is a very broad term. And I think about it very broadly. I think about it in terms of the ships that we want to build and we want to design, and how do we want to design something that feels fresh and new, including taking on board all the needs for sustainability and having fuel efficient engines? So there’s that side of it.

There’s innovation in terms of where we go. Colombia is a really good example, and being on the, on the Magdalena River of pioneering and being somewhere where literally we have built the infrastructure to be able to river cruise in Colombia. And that’s very exciting.

And then there is the investment that we are doing and need to do in technology. And whether it’s data, you couldn’t have a podcast and travel without mentioning AI, but we’re doing a lot of work to understand how does AI obviously help us become more efficient, understand much more about our guests and super serve them, and also just make sure that our crew and our agents, if you leverage AI in the right way and you have the right tools and the right data in particular, it allows us to spend and invest so much more in creating that human experience that is even better. And so the, the humanization of automation that people talk about, it is very real and it’s very important. And we’re very focused on that too.

Julia: Well, it’s all very exciting. And thank you so much for being here today.

Catherine: Thank you for having me.

Julia: Congratulations on the brand relaunch.

Catherine: Thank you. We’re excited about it.

Julia: Thanks for joining us for this special episode of View From Afar, recorded live at ILTM in Cannes. In the show notes, you’ll find links to everything we discussed today, as well as AmaWaterways’ website and social media handles and Afar’s recent coverage of the river cruise line. And be sure to follow along this week to hear more interviews with industry experts.

You can find more Views From Afar on Afar.com and be sure to follow us on Instagram and TikTok. We are @AfarMedia. If you enjoyed today’s exploration, I hope you’ll come back for more great interviews. Subscribing always makes that easy. And be sure to rate and review the show on your favorite podcast platforms. It helps other travelers find it.

This has been View From Afar, a production of Afar Media. The podcast is produced by Aislyn Greene and Nikki Galteland with assistance from Jenn Flowers, Julia Cosgrove, and Joe Diaz. Music composition from Epidemic Sound.

This podcast is part of the Airwave Media Podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to its other fine shows like Culture Kids and The Explorers Podcast.