Senior vice-president and managing director, Europe, Middle East and Africa Bernard Carter told TTG the line was aiming for between 500-600 agents to visit the line’s ships this year.
“I want to step up the number of agents visiting our ships. I also want to go out and encourage new travel agents to come onboard,” he said.
Carter added that he also wanted to encourage agents to bring “new to brand consumers” onboard with them. “That’s the best time to get people to book, and experience shows that’s when they tend to book.”
Customers that do book while on a ship visit will receive onboard offers, while Carter insisted that their original agent would receive the commission on the booking. He added that the ship visits would be free for agents but consumers will be charged £25.
Meanwhile, Carter also revealed plans to grow the number of tour operators it works with. “They are an extra channel to the market place,’ he said. “We are a cruise operator first, and might not have as much access to land product [as tour operators do].”
He refused to reveal names, but insisted any new partners would be “specialist operators”, befitting the Oceania brand.
Priti Mehta, UK and Ireland head of sales for Oceania, added: “We will target operators that have the best opportunities for the areas we operate in. We want to grow our distribution and tour operators recognise the potential in new-to-cruise.”
She admitted the line had been already been approached by a number of operators, but said it wanted to remain selective about its partners. “We want them to bring something to the table too, such as more unusual packages,” she said. “We want them to think a little differently.”
Carter added: “We want to enhance the product rather than cannibalise it.”
Elsewhere, he revealed that Oceania was gearing up to launch both its summer 2017 and winter 2018 brochures later this month – the first time it has launched two seasons at the same time.
“Winter 2017 is already massively up compared with [winter 2016] the same time last year,” he said.
“I would expect to see a surge of business [at the launch of the programmes].”
