The TNG launched the new offering this week, at its first Cruise Club conference, in Birmingham.

Members of the consortium’s Cruise Club will be able to access a dedicated team of experts from World Travel Holdings (WTH) to assist with any questions, with the team available seven days a week.

Specialised marketing, point of sale materials and a dedicated consumer magazine, will also be available.

Lisa Henning, The TNG’s group membership services director, said the new partnership would give the consortium “a great competitive edge”.

She added that it had been ready for “a while”, prior to rival consortium Advantage’s Cruise and More announcement earlier this month that it had partnered with Jetline cruise to offer Advantage members a new range of cruise packages.

“We just wanted to make sure that it was all perfect as we wanted to do a hard launch and ensure we had the right proposition for members,” she told TTG.

“We relaunched our Cruise Club three years ago, and this is the next stage of that. It’s all about the customer service that we deliver to our members, so that the members can have engaged conversations with their clients.”

James Cole, co-owner and managing director of WTH, said the deal would mean agents had access to “hundreds, if not thousands of cruise and stay packages”.

“We can also do prescribed itineraries for members as well. It’s an opportunity for members to get competitive products. It’s an additional distribution channel for us and for our members.”

“Our whole focus this year has been on customer service,” added Henning. “Our relationship with the cruise operators has never been better and today we have better engagement than ever with them than ever before.  

“We have really upped our game in the sector this year by committing to our main conference taking place on-board a cruise ship and by running our very first Cruise Club Conference.”