Celebrity’s UK and Ireland director of commercial sales Sarah Harraghy said there had been a fear among trade and passengers alike that agents would lose out if bookings were made through the line’s onboard Future Cruise booking programme.

“The onboard team told us that one of the biggest barriers to people booking this way is that they thought it would count as a direct booking,” she said. “But the sale goes immediately to the relevant travel agent. They don’t have to do very much on the booking at all but they still get the same level of commission.”

Harraghy told TTG the line had started “working in earnest” this year, with several of its key trade partners to reassure agents it wasn’t trying to poach their customers.

“We have worked with some trade partners to ensure that if they have more than 10 bookings on a specific sailing we deliver a letter to their guest’s cabin, from their agent, explaining that there’s no better time to book – far in advance.

“There is a bit of mistrust that the booking will be transferred to a direct one but there’s no incentive for the onboard team to do that – they don’t make any more money.”

Meanwhile, Celebrity’s vice-president of hotel operations Brian Abel announced last week the hotly anticipated Edge-class ship would debut in autumn 2018. Two new ships will be delivered between 2018 and 2020, although Abel remained tight-lipped about onboard features. He said: “We think it [Edge] is going to change the industry, like the Solstice-class ship did.”

He also revealed that Celebrity’s two new ships in the Galapagos – the 48-passenger Celebrity Xperience and 16-passenger Celebrity Xploration – will enter dry dock for renovation towards the end of this year, and will emerge Celebrity-branded by February 2017.