Speaking to TTG at the annual Advantage Cruise Conference this week, senior commercial manager Claire Brighton said that last year the peak selling period had come in March, but sales had been strong this January and the group was seeing good volumes for 2020.

Brighton told delegates she had anticipated 2018 being “a challenge” after a strong 2017, but that it had been a great year of growth.

River cruise in particular saw double-digit growth for members with a 19% year-on-year increase.

Brighton said: “Advantage members were early adopters of river cruise and we have seen triple or double-digit growth for the past five years.

Elsewhere, mainstream cruise “picked up” as the year went on with a 10% increase year-on-year while the luxury and niche sector saw growth of 9%.

Brighton said expedition cruising was “one to look out for” and asserted innovation in cruise doesn’t have to be about onboard product but could also be about new destinations.

She highlighted sustainability was increasingly important.

“Some people might think cruise isn’t environmentally friendly, but they are missing what the cruise lines are trying to do. I don’t think there are many other sectors that do as much,” she added.

Direct marketing has proved a successful tool for Advantage members, with Brighton saying last year’s cruise direct mailer generated £3.2 million in sales, and that these had a high transaction value of about £4,500 on average.

She highlighted video as becoming an important factor. The consortium’s marketing department found that including the word ‘video’ in a subject line increased click-throughs by 13% and that videos on social media generated 12 more shares than images and text alone.

This year, content will be a major focus for Advantage.

Brighton said: “We will be getting more rich content out to our members to help them become more engaged with their customers.

"We launched our Cruise Finder tool on the Widgety platform last year and this year we will launch a new ‘bookazine’ called Navigate for agents to share with customers.

"That will be the first step, but we have more to come this year.”