Speaking during the Advantage Travel Partnership’s Latitude cruise conference at the weekend, which was hosted onboard Ambassador ship Ambience, the line’s chief executive Christian Verhounig revealed he had noticed keen cruise fans – who had previously sailed with luxury brands – were now booking Ambassador sailings.

"We’re seeing luxury customers come to us," said Verhounig. "Just now, I was talking to two former Cunard cruisers. They’ve been on 18 cruises with Cunard. We’ve got it right with this product – it’s affordable quality. I think people are still dealing with the cost of living crisis, but they’ll not give up their cruise holiday.”

He added: “They will lower their expectations and when they get onboard, they will see the [Ambassador] product is a far higher level than they expected.”

Asked for his current assessment of the cruise market, he admitted: “It’s still tough. The bigger cruise lines have a lot of capacity out there.”

However, he insisted the success of Ambassador’s decision to launch its 2026/27 programme early highlighted how cruise was “finally back” following the pandemic. 

Verhounig said he believed the Canary Islands was an area where there would be overcapacity this winter.

But he added: “When there’s overcapacity, there’s an opportunity to attract new-to-cruise passengers. Across the industry, more than 80% of people who go on a cruise come back again.”

Ambassador is currently looking for cruise ships to buy, said Verhounig. “We’re sailing at 90% capacity, so we have to look at additional tonnage.

"It’s going to be a second-hand ship. It will have the same sustainability credentials as our existing ships. We want a classic cruise ship. If we were to order a new ship, we would have to wait until 2029 – we’ll have a ship before then."

Verhounig hailed the travel agent partnerships Ambassador’s trade sales team have developed since the line’s inception in 2021. “Travel agents are extraordinarily important for us,” he stressed.

When asked why Ambassador’s ships used marine gas oil instead of liquefied natural gas (LNG), Verhounig said: “LNG is a good solution but it’s not the long-term solution.

"We’re concentrating on bio fuels and synthetic fuels. We’re quite far with the development of these fuels.”