And they’ll achieve this by convincing their clients to swap their plans for a land-based trip for a holiday at sea by extolling the sector’s value.

Earlier this month TTG visited Carnival Cruise Line’s London office to sit down with sales leads from Carnival’s six UK cruise brands – Carnival Cruise Line, P&O Cruises, Princess Cruises, Seabourn, Holland America Line and Cunard.

All were united in the messaging – more training, fam trips, ship visits and in-person engagement will be central to their efforts to bolster agents’ understanding of each brand’s key selling points, something the team consider even more important than price when it comes to securing new business.

The mood around the table was buoyant, with Princess’s UK and Ireland sales director Nick Hughes kicking things off with a simple yet optimistic take on business following a positive start to 2023 for the line.

"We were better sold going into 2023 than we were going into 2020 – we’re in double-digit growth for this period," he revealed.

Hughes’ positive comments were echoed by Holland America sales and marketing director Karen Farndell, who says she’s pleased with how wave is performing after the line recently recorded one of its strongest bookings weeks in the past six months.

"A particular trend we are seeing at the moment is for Alaska and other exotic destinations – it’s good to see them coming back," she said.

And the positivity didn’t stop there; Carnival Cruise Line’s director of UK and international sales Luke Smith went on to discuss how the line’s 2023 European product is nearing full capacity.

"We came into this year in a much stronger position for forward bookings than we were in 2019," he explained. "So we are really pleased that pent-up demand is now coming through."

Seabourn’s UK and Europe director of sales Wendy Lahmich struck a similar tone, as did P&O Cruises sales director Ruth Venn and Cunard sales director Tom Mahoney, each reporting strong ends to 2022 and positive starts to the new year.

Cost pressures

However, despite the upbeat outlook for the coming year, an important question for the brands remained unanswered: how will they sustain this positive momentum as the cost of living crisis bites?

"It’s simple," they insisted, highlighting heightened trade engagement, strengthened sales teams, new ship visit programmes, extra fam trips and enhanced training modules. 

For Cunard, 2022 was a "year of evolution", explained Mahoney, who took up his role last February. "In that time, we’ve promoted two of our sales team into senior roles, as well as recruiting two new business managers and a business development manager,” he said.

"We’re now back to a size similar to 2019, with a view to grow further. We’re looking to work with new partners and increase Cunard’s presence up and down the country."

Cunard will also look to double its fam trip programme for 2023 compared with 2022, from 100 agents across four trips to 200 agents across eight trips.

Lahmich, meanwhile, is confident the group’s decision to separate the Seabourn and Holland America teams will benefit the lines’ trade partners.

"Revenues are high, so the commissioned earnings are really, really good for agents," she continued. "Separating the Holland America and Seabourn teams has given us real focus and dedication for our trade output alone, as we now have dedicated sales front.

"In 2022, we took more than 100 UK agents on Seabourn for the first time ever, so we’d like to think we can replicate that in 2023."

For P&O Cruises, the line’s recently launched Arvia is currently sailing the Caribbean before its winter deployment in the Mediterranean and the brand has also announced plans to expand its sales team to boost ties with agents, something Venn believed will be key to Arvia’s success.

Additional training, visits and engagement, along with new team members and fam trips are all part of the brands’ overall aim to attract new cruise customers via the trade in 2023.

"There are two million people we think will sail in 2023," Hughes predicted. "So that’s roughly three in every 100 customers speaking to a travel agent who are actually going to go on a cruise.

"Look at the value that cruise has to offer – it’s got to be attractive to more than 3% of the population," he urged. 

"Value is key"

So, the question for Carnival Corporation was simple – how do they get that value message across?

"It’s in the education," Hughes reasoned. "There’s got to be more than three of every hundred people that would enjoy going one of our ships.

"The value overall to actually take a cruise at the moment is so high because the prices are so low. It’s not necessarily about how we look at pricing, but actually what do in terms of the value proposition.

"Price is part of a decision the consumer will make, but it should not be the deciding factor."

His comments were echoed by Venn, who said an increase in the price of domestic holidays, hotels, attractions and shows has made cruise even more attractive.

"There is incredible value in cruise at the moment," she said. "And I think agents get that – they’ve always looked at it in that way."

"We’re all able to demand higher prices at the moment, as our value is so much bigger," Lahmich added, while Farndell praised agents for their work promoting the industry’s main selling points to their customers.

Mahoney stressed the focus needs to be "much less on price" because of its fluidity versus the six brands’ offerings.

"It will go up and down over time. But the value cruise represents is what is really important – and we’re doing a better job of driving that message. I think that’s resonating as we’re seeing demand coming through across the board."