Speaking to TTG, president Jacqueline Dobson said river and luxury holidays-at-sea have proven particularly popular so far in 2023. 

The Scottish independent has seen a 327% uptick in river cruise sales this year and a 101% increase in luxury sales compared with pre-pandemic figures. 

The majority of the customers are new-to-cruise, Dobson added, which she attributed to an increased presence in the market. "Having our staff trained to be able to talk about cruising comfortably has been so important," she explained.

"There’s a multitude of different factors as to why it’s increased, but we’re not seeing a drop in land-based holidays as a result."

The agency has also seen an increase in multi-generational cruise bookings as families "begin to appreciate" the value-for-money a holiday-at-sea offers, which Dobson believes was inspired by more UK travellers taking domestic cruise holidays in 2021 when ships were restricted to British waters during the pandemic.

Dobson put the uptick down to the agency’s Cruise Academy performing "extremely well". The training initiative, which was launched last year, has seen new-to-cruise agents take part, as well as experienced sellers.

"It’s absolutely fantastic," Dobson said. "Not only do we have the Cruise Academy, but we now have cruise specialists within our branches in each region, which has helped our agencies to really focus on their cruise business.

"They’ve worked absolutely brilliantly, and it is evidenced by the results we’ve been seeing from a cruise perspective."

She also detailed plans to enhance the Cruise Academy with additional training courses, as lines become more sophisticated with new technologies and sustainability initiatives.

Karen Musgrave, Barrhead head of PR and communications, said although cruise lines are employing industry-leading carbon reduction schemes, there is a disconnect between suppliers and agents when communicating the new initiatives. 

"I don’t necessarily think cruise lines’ sustainability initiatives are translating over from a training perspective yet to agents," she told TTG. "We want to start talking to lines about how we can start filtering that information over to an agent side of things, as conversations with customers about cruises’ sustainability initiatives aren’t necessarily happening yet." 

"Customers are not really asking about [sustainability] yet," Dobson added. "But it’s going to come, so we want be prepared for it, which is why it is important to start doing this training now."