It comes after both Advantage and The Travel Network Group announced partnerships with cruise agencies last year to give members access to bespoke cruise packages.

Dnata’s acquisition of a 51% stake in Imagine Cruising last year had fuelled speculation that Global could follow suit.

However speaking at the Global Travel Group’s conference in Dubai this week, Andy Stark told TTG:  “There are talks [with Imagine], and there would be an opportunity for them to be a preferred supplier,” but he stressed it would not be an exclusive agreement.

“We don’t force or drive our members to a particular product. That’s not the way we work. We have 155 preferred suppliers, I think Imagine would be another form of distribution for us but we already have access to great cruise product with Travel 2 – it’s not as though we haven’t got it already.”

For the same reason, Stark also stressed that members would not see the consortium launching its own tour operating product, as announced by Advantage at its recent conference.

“There is absolutely no need for us to do that,” Stark said. “We’ve got [bed bank] Triton Rooms, we’ve got our own contracting team – we’ve got all the components for members to either work with our tour operators [Gold Medal and Travel 2] or to dynamically-package things up themselves.”

Elsewhere, Stark added that dnata could still seek to emulate the Global model in other markets.

“It could happen,” he told TTG. “Iain [Andrew, dnata senior vice president, travel] has mentioned that. He likes the business model and has mentioned that dnata could use that business model in other parts of the group.”