However, for all the product available to agents, there is one small – but crucial – part of the jigsaw that hasn’t always kept pace with progress.
Earlier this year, Carnival UK’s sales chiefs told TTG they often see agents dropping out of ship visits. P&O Cruises’ Ruth Venn explained how her team would have to contact agents to remind them that if they sign up, “please make sure you come”.
No one can say for sure why agents fail to attend the ship visits they agree to join. But perhaps if cruise lines thought as much about the ship visit experience they offer agents as they do their products, they might stand a better chance of reversing dropout rates. So what are the solutions?
Aaron Langford has been Royal Caribbean International’s UK and Ireland senior sales director for less than a year, and could arguably leave Royal’s market-leading product to sell itself through the trade.
However, not willing to stand still, he has already signed off some eye-catching changes to the line’s ship visit programme.
The line now hosts 60 agents – up from 45 – on each ship visit and makes sure there is one member of trade-facing staff available for every 10 agents onboard.
“We try to intensify the experience for agents and avoid making it like a school day,” Langford explains. “I push my team to make sure we’re maximising these opportunities.
“We tell agents to bring their swimwear, and then we do a little sun dance in the hope they can enjoy the pool. We want agents to have the full Royal experience.”
The biggest change to Royal’s programme, though, is coming this summer: agents will be flown to Barcelona to see and experience the line’s latest hardware first-hand.
Royal is still calculating how many agents it can invite onboard a revamped Allure of the Seas this summer, and its third Icon-class ship – Legend of the Seas – in 2026. But Langford insists he wants a “meaningful” number of agents onboard. “We’ve not taken agents out to Barcelona for a ship visit before,” he adds.
‘Bring your family’
Any parent knows they can only fully relax on holiday once their children are happy. This is something Princess Cruises has long recognised. This summer, Princess has made three of its 10 ship visits family days, meaning agents can bring their kids onboard.
The idea is that agents see the product through their children’s eyes – and disembark with a better understanding of how to sell it to families.
“I want agents to understand Princess so they can bring it to life for their clients,” says Hayley Moore, the line’s UK and Europe sales director. “We know the biggest barrier to selling cruise is trying to sell experiences they haven’t experienced for themselves.”
While Royal has increased the number of agents it invites to its ship visits, Oceania Cruises has gone the other way. The premium ocean line hosted 2,000 agents and customers on 30 ship visits in 2024, but 12 months later, UK and Ireland sales director Louise Craddock has more than halved that number.
Why? “Last year was crazy,” Craddock admits. “It put a lot of pressure on our team.” This year, she hopes to offer a more bespoke experience for agents tailored specifically to the agency they work for. Travel Counsellors and InteleTravel will have their own dedicated ship visits this summer.
To ensure agents remain engaged throughout the day and beyond, Craddock says her team awards prizes to agents who publish the best photos of the ship on social media.
“We want agents to keep posting pictures when they get home,” Craddock adds. “It keeps them engaged for another few days.”
Meanwhile, Expedition Cruise Network (ECN) chief executive Akvile Marozaite says that supplier members should ask agents to complete taster courses before joining ship visits to ensure they get the most out of their time onboard.
“In a recent ECN survey, most agents flagged they would prefer to complete some pre-visit training about the ship or the line they are about to experience for the first time," explains Marozaite.
"If they’re only visiting a ship, agents often want to spend as much time with the expedition leaders as possible to get a sense of the expedition experience.”
Overnight visits
One fairly easy – if expensive – way for cruise lines to make their ship visits stand out is to allocate agents cabins for an overnight stay. Not Just Travel agent Rob Slater argues when agents are quickly “herded” around a ship, it is “impossible to see the details that can make or break a sale”.
AE Expeditions EMEA sales director Andrew Turner plans to give agents the “true expedition experience” by offering two extended ship visits next month. Previously, agents would only get “a few hours” onboard. Turner confirmed the line has spent more than £60,000 on both ship visits in Troon and Aberdeen.
“I’ve been in the role for a year – we now want to do something a little different,” he says. This year, 120 agents will get “the same experience a customer would get if they were sailing onboard [AE ship] Greg Mortimer”, he adds.
“Agents will have lunch, listen to lectures from our expedition team, and explore the ship just as they would if they were having a sea day,” Turner adds.
“The evening is very relaxed and informal. It’s all about trying to give them a taste of what an expedition would be like, save for the fact the ship stays in port.”
If the ship visits are deemed a success by AE bosses, Turner hopes to run more next year when the soon-to-launch Douglas Mawson will be part of the fleet. Turner is not alone in his vision.
Azamara’s UK managing director David Duff and Atlas Ocean Voyages’ international sales lead Bernie Carter both have ambitions to host agents on overnight ship visits in the future.
Carter highlights the importance of “immersing” agents in the product, something that can only be achieved if they spend longer periods of time onboard than they traditionally have done, while Duff adds: “It’s important to keep things fresh."
