Speaking to TTG during a ship visit onboard Nautica in Southampton last week, Bernard Carter, senior vice-president and managing director EMEA, said: “We’ve always been big on travel agents but this year we are doing more ship visits around the UK at different ports.”
He said the line had changed its strategy to enable agents “to earn more and to allow us to grow our revenues”.
“For example, we’re focused on increasing our group opportunities for agents – we have increased the exclusive marketing materials that we offer them and we also overbrand these with our key partners,” Carter said.
“We’ve also increased ship visits for agents and the opportunities for them to bring their guests onboard. And we currently have 120 UK and EU agents on the largest fam we’ve ever done. They’re travelling over a period of 20 days split into chunks of three, four or five days on Insignia.”
Meanwhile, Carter announced changes to Oceania’s future deposit programme, giving customers longer to book while still retaining the “best price guarantee promise”.
“People often know they want to travel with us, but they don’t know where they want to go or when,” he explained.
“Our ‘guaranteed best price’ is usually reserved for those who book their next cruise onboard, but now we’ll ensure that it is also offered at events we run with agents. And if customers don’t want to commit to certain sailings but are happy to commit to a refundable deposit, they will be given a certificate they can use within a certain time period.”
