Nathaniel Sherborne, vice president and managing director, Europe, and global sales enablement, exclusively told TTG the 500-passenger Fridtjof Nansen ship will be "filled" with travel agents in May.
The line is still finalising exactly how many UK and Irish agents will be invited and the "statement" event’s format but Sherborne revealed there will be activities on Zodiacs and the ship would sail to at least one destination.
"This time next year we will have a full ship mega fam," he explained. "We will take agents from the UK and Ireland and fly them across to Hamburg.
"They will have two nights onboard to give them an even more amazing experience but the event will be bite-sized so more people can experience the ship. The ship will be filled with travel agents."
He confirmed UK and Irish agents could secure spots on the fam trip through a series of competitions this year.
"We will reveal details about where we’re going in due course," Sherborne said. "It won’t be a cruise to nowhere. We will be getting out on the Zodiacs and doing some stuff that is aligned to our spirit of being experts in expedition.
"This is something that we’ve always wanted to do. We’ve been planning for the last three or four months."
Sherborne said the fam trip is "a credit to the wider business". "Our ships are not always close to us so credit to the wider business," he explained.
"Sometimes a business is not always tuned into support from the trade but this fam shows our operations and maritime colleagues are really tuned into how important the trade are for us.
"We wanted to do a statement event next year to celebrate our 130th anniversary."
When asked about HX’s fleet expansion plans, Sherborne insisted the line would not remove any capacity and is always on the lookout for opportunities that matched the company’s sustainability values. HX’s website outlines how the line aims "to be the most sustainable travel operator in the world".
"Our chief executive Gebhard Rainer has been quoted as saying that we’re looking at what expansion plans are available to us," Sherborne said.
"We’ve got to be sensible because clearly we’re very conscious of our sustainability credentials so any purchase of any hardware or build of any hardware we need to make sure that it’s right for us.
"We will never rush into anything. We’ve got areas, destinations or opportunities on the list for expansion should we need to.
"We do feel that there’s a huge opportunity to land the HX name [with the trade] and ensure that more people are coming into the sector more generally."
