Asked whether this would have an impact on Cook, Gardner said: “In the long run, no, in the short term, possibly. What we might do is launch strong-selling product earlier, rather than the entire programme. One of the reactions we had [to Tui’s early launch] was bringing weddings forward a bit.
“It’s tricky because a lot of the rates we have aren’t confirmed, so we have to price off estimated rates, and I worry that if I had to hedge my bets on price, everything would look super expensive.
“Yes, in the short run it will give us a bit of a challenge, and I think the way to address it is to pick out key products to sell earlier from next year.”
Gardner added: “We’ve got some capacity changes for next year, which makes me feel better about [it].”
