Gary Gillespie, managing director of The Travel Network Group's homeworking arm Independent Travel Experts, told TTG cruise now accounts for nearly a fifth (18%) of the group's overall destination mix, while Ramsbottom-based Designer Travel said cruise bookings during the early stages of peaks were currently up by two-thirds (66%) compared with last year.
Travel Counsellors is another business seeing "strong performance" across ocean and river cruising, up 17% year-on-year, a statistic global sales director Jim Eastwood said “reflected an ongoing appetite for carefully curated, highly immersive and inclusive travel experiences”.
'Adventurous' enquiries offer agents hope after choppy start to wave
Sandra Corkin, executive director of Oasis Travel, another agency for whom cruise is "getting bigger", said the sector's "value proposition" – particularly from an all-inclusive perspective – was attracting interest from clients. Cruise now accounts for 40% of the agency’s business, compared with 35% last year.
Kimara Boyd, team leader at Howard Travel in Trowbridge, flagged Nile cruises as an increasingly popular choice for travellers, with Egypt proving popular in general thanks to new or extended programmes from Jet2.com and Jet2holidays and Tui.
Uncertainty over US tourism
Political uncertainties, including President Trump’s threats of military intervention in Venezuela and Greenland, continue to pose a question mark for travel to the US. Travel Counsellors told TTG the US was continuing to “perform well” – particularly Florida and New York – with any anxieties buffered by anticipation for the 2026 Fifa World Cup.
Advantage Travel Partnership commercial director John Sullivan said the consortium "expects" a significant increase in US travel thanks to the event. "Demand will come, with matches spread across multiple major cities, and as global interest in international travel around the tournament grows," he explained.
Meanwhile, Designer Travel’s head of sales and commercial Darren Bien said the agency had experienced an "unexpected big drop" in Florida enquiries. Several other agencies also reported spikes in bookings for alternative long-haul destinations, with Canada and Australia topping the list.
Family holidays boost bookings value
Agents are seeing more high-value bookings this peaks, a trend that seems to go hand-in-hand with a growing interest in and demand for multi-generational travel. “We are finding a lot more families taking big trips together,” Boyd told TTG.
Boyd explained among families, the most common enhancements were accommodation and flight upgrades, as well as longer-duration breaks. “Repeat clients are coming in and saying, ‘we loved that hotel last year, let’s go again for longer’, or, ‘let’s do business class and treat ourselves’ – that sort of thing.”
However, while Tivoli Travel director Jo Richards agreed bookings can be boosted by multi-generational trips, she said family business was always a “mixed bag”. “One day, a client will spend £80,000 taking their family to the Caribbean, which will be followed by someone who doesn’t want to spend more than £1,000 per person on a family cruise,” Richards explained. “You’re always going to have clients who are budget-conscious.”
Ultimately, consumers continue to prioritise value over "the cheapest price", according to Advantage's Sullivan. He added that "competitive, all-inclusive offerings", such as Spain's Costa Blanca and Egypt, were performing well as a result.
Mainstream market 'remains strong'
Typically, the bottom line is the resilience of European short breaks. ITE's Gillespie said mainstream packages were the “main volume driver” for the agency, with summer 2026 representing “well over half of all sales”.
Nicki Tempest Mitchell, managing director of Barrhead Travel, also flagged European breaks, with “perennial favourites” such as Tenerife and Majorca continuing to perform well as the Scottish agency gears up for an “exceptionally strong summer 2026”.
Gillespie added that, while short breaks continue to dominate, tailor-made bookings account for a "significantly larger share” of overall sales, emphasising the increasing importance of “bespoke travel” and dynamic packaging.
This was a sentiment shared by TTNG’s director of membership services, Stephanie Slark, who said that long-haul and more ”complex” itineraries were on the rise “following a quieter end to the year”.
