Live from the 2026 ASTA River Cruise Expo: 4 Questions with Riviera Travel’s Stuart Milan

“We’re not here to go slow,” Stuart Milan, president of Riviera Travel for North America, told Travel Market Report at a pre-Expo event onboard Riviera Travel’s M.S. Geoffrey Chaucer.

The last time TMR sat down with Milan was at last year’s River Cruise Expo. Since then, the company has grown its office in Fort Lauderdale by more than 1000% — from a staff of two to 25 individuals spread across reservations, field sales, and customer service.

Here, in four questions, is what else Milan, and Riviera’s new CEO Matt Luscombe, had to say.

Q. The last time we spoke was about a year ago and Riviera Travel was still in the early days of expanding its presence in North America. How has the past year been?

“In my honest opinion, it’s been amazing,” Milan said. In that one year, the brand changed its name to Riviera Travel, grew it’s Fort Lauderdale office to 25 staff, launched Riviera Explorer, its travel advisor portal and education center, and grew its North American sourced revenue significantly.

“2025 saw us double our passenger number versus ’24 in North America, and the first three months of North America trading of this financial year, we’re over 200% up on the previous year,” he said adding, “I think that’s a pretty good indication of how well we’re doing.”

Milan emphasized its all thanks to the travel advisor community, which he called “the backbone” behind Riviera Travel’s North American growth.

“Riviera has resonated well with certain travel advisors that are really supporting us,” he added.

We asked him what about the brand is resonating with advisors.

“The fact that we’re upper premium but with that all-inclusive element to it has resonated really well with travel advisors and the consumers purchasing through them. I think our value for money is very good and, therefore, people are willing to try us out.”

Now that Riviera has had success with the travel advisor community it targeted in its first year, the brand is looking to expand with the rest of the North American advisor community.

“We actually focused on certain travel advisor groups to make sure we could get a key foothold.”

Now that the line has had success with its initial launch plans, it’s looking to open up to the remainder of the advisor community.

“That’s part of the reason behind the launch of Riviera Explorer to make our training more accessible to a wider group of people. Because our team is still relatively small, they can’t get to everyone,” Milan said.

Riviera also has plans to make yet more customer service-based changes to continue to tailor the product for the North American market.

Q. What are travel advisors seeing in the Riviera brand that makes them comfortable to suggest it to clients?

In addition to the value proposition that Milan said resonates with advisors, the line’s attention to the solo market is proving to be enticing as well.

“I think they see that as one of our main points of difference,” he said.

“You’ve got to remember, we’re asking these travel advisors to trust us. We’re a relatively new proposition in the U.S. and we’re asking them to entrust us with their customers, the people they’ve been working with for years and years and that’s a huge leap of faith. One of the aspects of our proposition that they’ve become really comfortable with is our solos proposition,” he added.

Luscombe added that he believes the team that Milan has built up in North America is another reason advisors are willing to give Riviera Travel a try.

“It has a lot to do with Stu and the team that he’s built in the States. We’ve had a very clear trade-first strategy to growing our business in the States,” he said. “It makes sense to us to go out there and invest our time and energy building relationships with the travel advisor community. I hope that we are as flexible and easy to work with, if not more so, than our competitors, because that’s what we try to do every single day.”

Q. You were still new to the job as president of North America last year. What did you learn at the beginning that impacted your overall North American strategy?

While some of Riviera’s early strategy changes were driven by things like a stronger charter market than expected, it was really the line’s first so-called advisory meeting with select travel advisors at least year’s ASTA River Expo that had the most impact.

“Getting that feedback this time last year was quite a sobering moment,” he said.

Changes that came from that meeting included expanding the variety of drinks available at the bar (Americans have to have tequila apparently), making breakfast available all day, and providing a choice of shore excursions in each port rather than only one tour.

“We’ve changed a huge amount,” Milan emphasized. “This upcoming season will be the first time from a consumer experience point of view on board where they’ll start to see those changes.”

Q. What else can North American travel advisors look forward to from Riviera Travel?

While Riviera Travel has new ships and new itineraries (including Egypt) in the pipeline, Milan told TMR he’s excited about the continuing evolution of the Riviera Explorer travel advisor training program.

“We’re ensuring the content we have on that platform is continually evolving, especially around the new ships that are coming onboard,” he said.

He added the training isn’t only about Riviera Travel. There’s a lot about river cruising in general. It also opens the gateway to incentives and rewards that can only be claimed by graduates of the training program.

Riviera also plans to expand its team of regional sales directors in order to grow its reach in the United States and Canada.

Additionally, Riviera is planning to ramp up a brand recognition push among North American consumers. This will help advisors, he said, because consumers will start coming to them having already heard of Riviera Travel.

“It’s an easier sell than trying to sell a consumer something they’re not aware of.”

Finally, Riviera will continue to go all-in on the solo market, as the majority of the solo market demand is driven by the U.S. market.

“What we see from a U.S. point of view is groups of solo travelers who want to travel as friends but want their own space,” Milan said.

While Riviera has always had dedicated solo sailings across its fleet, the line now has a full ship dedicated to continuous solo sailings. (Only small groups are permitted so as not to change the dynamic of each sailing.)