Speaking at the agency’s retail conference in the Algarve, head of cruise commercial Catriona Parsons acknowledged the growth of the company’s cruise business so far - including cruise bookings accounting for 32% of the agency’s overall sales last week.

Parsons described staff efforts in boosting cruise sales as "simply phenomenal", but told agents that "we are simply scratching the surface".

Between May and October 2023, passenger numbers for Hays were up 31%, with revenue for the business up by almost 40% and profit growing by 51% compared to same period the previous year. Margins were also improving, Parsons added, while average selling price was up by £102 per person.

  
Cruise is predicted to account for 25% of the agency’s business this year, but Parsons said the opportunity was there for “33% for a full year, not just a week”.

She pledged to Hays’ managers that “we’re trying to get as many of you away on ships and we’re holding as many training sessions as we can. It’s about increased knowledge and preparing you for the opportunities”.

Cruises lasting seven or 14 nights have remained as the mainstay bookings at Hays, Parsons added, but she acknowledged a growth in three-to-five-night stays.
 
“[People] want to go on more holidays – they work hard,” she said.

Parsons also hinted at the popularity of sailings from UK ports, which means for many passengers “their holiday starts there. Regional departures are really trending at the moment”.
 
Andy Harmer, managing director of Clia UK & Ireland, was buoyant about the opportunities for cruise as he had earlier told conference delegates: “We are at a really crucial time. There has been a shift in the types of holidays people are looking for and there has never been a better time to go on a cruise or to sell a cruise.”
 
“We’ve successfully grown faster than any other sector in the travel industry over the past two years. For the first time ever, in the first six months of 2023, over one million Brits took a cruise holiday.

“That is a new record – and we are on a track to smash the previous record we set pre-pandemic.”

Harmer noted an industry investment of $44bn in new ships alone over the next five years, with the cruise sector set to operate more than 300 ships around the world next year, and passenger numbers set to hit almost 40 million over the next five years.

“Of course, as a business you can sell cruises to people who have already cruised, but the potential is to reach those who have never cruised before,” he told agents at Hays Travel’s Annual Conference.
 
Harmer also highlighted sustainability-led investments, including being able to “plug in to shoreside electricity the way we can plug into an electric car and using new fuels that means we are already net-zero carbon on some of our ships.
 
“We have that responsibility as an industry and we are responding to that responsibility by investing every single year.”