This ship model is of the new antarctic explorer vessel.
At the start or the end of a large project, there is often a need to mark the occasion or milestone to provide a sense of celebration and closure. At the beginning of a project build, the occasion is about celebrating what is achieved in the design phase, and inspiring the team and stakeholders for the next phase, ie the build. For the end of a build, like this one, it is rounding off and acknowledging a huge achievement.
In either case, a scale model is a powerful way to achieve this. It has the wow factor as a show piece, will hold the achievement as a long lasting memory of that time, and captures the project as a real life object you can touch.