Cruise lines are courting agents again. Will the romance last?

“We want to serve you,” MSC Cruises proudly declared to the trade last week. It was the strapline of its new agent initiative, which will see the line doubling its trade sales force, and increasing commission on both its shore excursions and the overall sale of its cruise packages.

Just days before MSC’s announcement, P&O and Cunard, the former employers of MSC executive director for the UK, Ireland and Australia Giles Hawke, announced they too would be offering agents a commission boost, with a bonus of up to 6% on top of the standard 7.5% remuneration levels for sales of P&O’s Select Price and Cunard Fare tickets.

Set of increases

The past 12 months have seen a flurry of headlines and press releases as cruise lines competed over who could shout loudest about their commitment to the trade.

In March 2013, Princess revealed it was upping its commission to 10% on the cruise elements of bookings. In the summer P&O and Cunard followed by announcing their Agent Matters campaign, before upping their commission from 5% to 7.5% in December. Princess followed by revealing it would be paying 10% commission on flights booked on 2015 cruises.

Cruise chiefs continued to stress their commitment to agents in interviews with TTG. And in May even Clia UK and Ireland announced that it would be setting up a new travel agent advisory council to discuss how the association, which comprises all the major cruise lines, can best help the trade in the future.

"The letters pages of TTG were filled with angry comments from agents vowing to derack cruise brochures..."

It is a notable turnaround from the days of 2011, when Hawke - now the man spearheading MSC’s agent-focused campaign - announced that P&O, Cunard and Princess Cruises would be slashing their commission to 5% and agents were left to watch as other lines, including Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises and Norwegian Cruise Line, slowly followed suit.

While the cruise bosses still stressed the importance of the trade, the commission cuts told a different story, and the letters pages of TTG were filled with angry comments from agents vowing to derack cruise brochures and accusing the lines of moving into the direct-sell market.

As before, actions are speaking louder than words, and as commission levels slowly begin to climb, so the promises from cruise bosses that agents remain integral to their sales becomes more believable. But are agents convinced, and are the lines doing enough to encourage those who moved away from selling cruise in 2011 to now return to this once lucrative sector?

Grudging return

For Alan Bevan, owner of Cardiff-based Blue Skies Travel, who deracked P&O and Cunard brochures in 2011, the answer seems to be yes - albeit a grudging one. “It’s clear that more and more people are booking with travel agents rather than online - the route to market is reversing back to agents rather than online,” he says.

“We did stop selling P&O, Cunard and Princess cruises when they cut commission - we deracked the brochures, but we’ve started racking them again in the past few months after they raised the commission.”

Gary Wardrope, owner of Get Cruising in Tunbridge Wells, agrees that the lines are making positive moves, but believes agents will be reluctant to trust cruise companies for a long while yet.

“The commission cuts left a sour taste in people’s mouth.

“I moved into different [travel] businesses away from cruising because I didn’t want to be exposed again [after the commission cuts]. Just because they put commission up for a few months doesn’t mean we can trust them - I would want to see more evidence that this was a longer-term commitment,” he adds.

"They’re making positive signs, but it won’t make much difference to agents, we need to see evidence of a real commitment"

Emma Sanger, personal travel advisor at Wexas, is also sceptical. “They’re trying to woo the agents, but it just feels like some of the lines are clutching at straws,” she says. “It’s a drop in the ocean - they’re making positive signs, but it won’t make much difference to agents, we need to see evidence of a real commitment.”

Advantage’s head of commercial, John Sullivan, concedes he also has concerns about the longevity of the cruise line’s commitment to the trade. “It’s always good to see commission increased, but what is currently being offered by P&O and Cunard is a short-term bonus.

One of the challenges is that a travel agent could sell a lot of customers into P&O and those passengers will then return, but the commission will have gone back down again - the agent will have spent all that time introducing a customer to P&O, but will only be rewarded in the short-term. It’s not a long-term strategy.”

Chris Truscott, sales and distribution support director for P&O and Cunard, disagrees however. He is keen to stress that the latest offer of bonus commission might itself be a short-lived promotion, but it is all part of a wider year-long campaign which he insists not only demonstrates his commitment to agents, but also the campaign’s longevity.

“Travel agents aren’t just in focus now - we have always been focused on them - they have always been our biggest channel of sale,” he argues.

“All the things that we have introduced have been part of our Agent Matters campaign, which we launched last summer. This [bonus] is just another continuance of that ongoing theme; it’s part of our sustained support plans for agents. We are absolutely committed to the trade.”