Speaking to TTG at WTM London, Rudi Schreiner, president of the river specialist said he considered the British market to have “much potential”, adding that agents remained integral in achieving this. All UK bookings are made through the trade.

He revealed plans to increase the line’s UK business by 10-15%, and said that the opening of the line’s first UK office, under the command of cruise industry veteran Stuart Perl, and the recent appointment of Jamie Loizou as sales, marketing and digital director, AmaWaterways would look to make the most of the “low-hanging fruit” that the UK market had to offer.

“The UK is great for us because of the quality of passenger. There’s a huge river cruise market in the UK and it has great river cruise heritage and room for us to grow,” he said.

“Right now we want to tell the UK market what we have to offer them; we will be all about the trade and growing our relationship with agents.” Elsewhere Schreiner discussed the possibility of AmaWaterways launching its first sailing in India for the fall of 2018 or early 2019, with plans to develop an 11-night Kolkata to Patna voyage.

“When you do a Kolkata round trip at the moment you don’t get to go on the Ganges but just one of its tributaries, and that’s one of the main reasons people travel to India,” he said.

“We will also look at opportunities on the Red River in Vietnam.”

Meanwhile, Schreiner said he was considering introducing “regional cruises” around Europe from 2019. “I have been looking at the possibility for years. To begin with it was important for us to have ships that go anywhere, but now we want ones that only operate on the Danube and the Rhine for example, and to be specialist,” he said.

AmaWaterways opened its first UK office in Guildford in September. Schreiner said he believed the UK could act as a base from which to grow the line’s operations in other European countries, including Ireland and Scandinavia.