Speaking on the 5,610-passenger ship on Tuesday (30 June), Gerard Nolan, EMEA Vice-President and Managing Director, outlined plans to offer another Seminar at Sea sailing in 2027.
In August, the family-focused cruise line will welcome 500 EMEA agents onboard for a Seminar at Sea cruise, but Nolan said he intends to repeat the educational event next year with more than half of the cabin allocation being taken up by UK and Irish agents.
He said: “On 16 August, we will do a four-night sailing onboard this ship with up to 500 agents. It will be our biggest one ever on Legend and for the EMEA region. We will hopefully do the same thing next year and it will be even bigger.”
While Nolan declined to say exactly how much bigger the 2027 Seminar at Sea sailing, he did confirm there would be more than 250 UK and Irish agents onboard.
“What we intend to do with our agent partners is to get their teams on,” he explained. “If you’ve been on this ship already, you don’t necessarily want to be on again. You'd want to spread the knowledge within the team.”
Nolan suggested that incentives could be used to allocate places to agents, but he stressed that plans were still being confirmed.
Barcelona cruise tax threat
Around half of Legend of the Seas' sailings this summer will depart from Barcelona, which confirmed last week plans to increase its existing cruise passenger tax.
When asked about Barcelona’s decision to triple the levy, Nolan said: “We do an awful lot of work to plan our deployment. The working relationship we have with the ports is continuous. It’s part of the process.
“We have that continuous ebb and flow for taxes. It is part and parcel of what happens.”
He later highlighted how in certain destinations Royal is actively working with authorities to reduce any overtourism pressures that exist.
The line opened Royal Beach Club Santorini earlier this year. Nolan hailed the beach club as a "great example of what we can do when we get it right". "We have ship strategy but we also have a destination strategy too," he added.
