Minister for Tourism meets with Vice President and Chairman of Viking

The Minister for Business, Tourism, Transport and the Port Vijay Daryanani held a meeting in Gibraltar with Matt Grimes, Vice President of Maritime Operations for Viking and the Chairman of Viking Torstein Hagen recently.

The meeting took place on board the Viking Venus, Viking’s newest ocean ship, which was on a technical call to Gibraltar. Mr Grimes and Mr Hagen flew into Gibraltar to join the ship and to meet with Mr Daryanani, who also went on a tour of the ship.

Mr Daryanani was shown the full-scale PCR laboratory on board the ship, which will provide a testing facility for Covid-19.

“Viking is committed to total safety on board for passengers and have impressive measures on board to ensure this,” said a statement from the Gibraltar Government.

Mr Grimes stated he was delighted to be in Gibraltar to meet Mr Daryanani and to join Viking’s newest ship, Viking Venus.

“I’ve been speaking virtually with Minister Daryanani now for several weeks, discussing possibilities for Gibraltar and it is a pleasure to be here and to meet him in person,” he said.

Mr Daryanani agreed that it was great to have one of my first face to face meetings this year with executives from the cruise industry and in particular with Mr Grimes.

“I have been in contact with him on video calls for the last few weeks. It was also an honour meet the Chairman of Viking, Torstein Hagen. I talked to Mr Grimes and Mr Hagen about Viking’s role in the resumption of cruise services and I have explained the protocols we have in place. I have also highlighted the success of our vaccination programme, thanks to the UK Government and the management of the pandemic here. I’m heavily committed to the cruise industry and this meeting is just one facet of the hard work I am carrying out to ensure the successful return of this important element of our tourism sector,” he said.