When SJ Walker sat down with TTG late last year, with Christmas just around the corner, the champagne was on ice.
Virgin Voyages was on an upward trajectory, although UK sales director Walker admitted the line had been too reliant on dynamic pricing, meaning agents were having to wrestle with “choppy” fares too often for her liking.
This year, the adults-only line has bedded in a new pricing model, which prioritises both agents and customers alike.
Speaking ahead of Brilliant Lady’s arrival in Portsmouth last month, which gave 1,300 agents the chance to experience Virgin Voyages’ fourth vessel, Walker reflects on the year so far – and is keen to flag how positively agents have welcomed the line’s decision to ditch dynamic pricing.
“The success we’ve had this year is around our pricing stability,” she says. “We’ve fixed prices on a monthly basis for 2025, 2026 and 2027 [departures].”
Walker explains Virgin Voyages now sets its prices at the start of each month to ensure agents have time to package its products. “Before I talked about our choppy pricing, that was the reality,” she concedes. “Now we give partners advanced notice.”
So what happens if lead-in prices need to be cut to drive demand for a particular departure or vice versa? How does the line respond when it comes to that scenario?
“We sometimes have the odd voyage for which we need to accelerate demand and therefore tweak the price,” Walker asserts. “If we do that, we always give our partners seven days’ notice.
“On a scale of how easy we are to do business with, I would like to think we’re leading the way from a pricing point of view."
To emphasise her point, Walker claims agents have told the line its “success is demonstrated through pricing stability and being able to capitalise on that from a revenue perspective”.
With average selling price (ASP) up by 35% year-on-year in the UK, agents are understandably happy with the new model. And despite prices going up by more than a third, Walker insists customers are happy too, thanks to that new- found pricing stability.
UK market 'over-delivering'
Walker visits Virgin Voyages’ Miami HQ every quarter to update the line’s senior leadership team. This year, these trips have been particularly enjoyable for Walker, with the UK still the line’s second-largest source market after North America.
The UK market, she says, “continues to over-deliver compared with the metrics set out by the business”. “When you consider where we were at this point last year, we were living almost hand-to-mouth,” Walker explains.
Virgin Voyages ship Brilliant Lady visited Portsmouth in August (Credit: Virgin Voyages)
“In terms of our booking curve, as we went into the 2025 Mediterranean season, we were a lot further sold than at this time last year.”
She adds: “We’ve gone from being a reactive cruise line to being able to forward-plan and be strategic with our thinking. We can now optimise our deployment and the revenue opportunities and work with our partners to achieve that.”
Last year, Walker says 90% of her and her team’s time was spent working on short-term planning. Today, she believes that figure has dropped to 50%.
Brilliant Lady – and beyond
Virgin Voyages is currently focusing on Brilliant Lady, which will touch “all four corners of the US” on its “MerMaiden” tour between now and June 2026.
Brilliant Lady is slightly narrower than its sister ships, which means it will be able to transit the Panama Canal on 26 March 2026 on its way to its Los Angeles MerMaiden sailing on 7 April.
Other than this minor change to help the 2,762-passenger ship navigate the iconic waterway, Virgin Voyages is launching seven new shows and a new Spanish tapas restaurant – Rojo by Razzle Dazzle – onboard Brilliant Lady.
Asked how Virgin Voyages will expand its fleet beyond Brilliant Lady, Walker is ready with her response almost before I’ve finished my question. “The story is to be continued,” she says. “We’re making sure the ships are filled at the right price – that allows us to take a breath.”
Walker goes on to reveal her three-step plan for the UK market, saying: “Step one is to stabilise our resource, that’s happening right now – recruitment will be the next step, and then we’ll explore new partnerships.”
The line recently lost two members of its team, one in sales and one in trade, to Titan Travel where former Virgin Voyages international sales vice-president Shane Lewis-Riley now leads the tour operator’s agent operation.
Walker says she is “working through” a recruitment plan to replace sales manager Andrea Jones and Chris Woodcock, who led the line’s Brilliant Support [trade] team for three years.
'We overlap with today's luxury customers'
Meanwhile, demand for Virgin Voyages’ RockStar and Mega RockStar suites prompted the line to add more of these grades to Scarlet Lady when the ship went into dry dock last year.
“What we find is that, from a UK perspective, the RockStar and the Mega RockStar suites are the categories that sell out first,” Walker explains. She also confirms some “initial discussions” have taken place with luxury travel partners about joining the line’s agent database.
“Our agent partners have evolved. There’s a good mix in our top 10 between retail, homeworkers, consortia and cruise specialists,” she says, adding: “It doesn’t lean towards one channel or the other.”
1,300 agents had a chance to experience the ship in Portsmouth (Credit: Virgin Voyages)
But she stresses: “There’s an overlap with what today’s luxury customers want and what we offer. We think the Virgin Voyages brand would resonate with some of these partners’ customers. I know there are luxury partners in the UK whose customers would enjoy our brand.”
Even though no plans to launch a fifth ship have been announced, the line’s 2027 Med programme is 25% larger than next year’s, which means the pressure is on Walker and her team to fill the extra capacity on sale.
“In 2027, we’ve got an extended season in the Med – we’ve got more voyages to sell. We’ll be looking for more bookings, more revenue, higher ASPs. Growth, growth, growth on every single metric,” Walker quips with a smile, even if it doesn’t sound like those champagne corks will be popping just yet.
