Trade sales overtake direct sales for cruise excursion specialist
An online company selling cruise excursions has revealed that sales through the trade has now exceeded direct sales in just 18 months.
Cruisingexcursions.com offers pre-bookable cruise excursions and claims they can be half the price of excursions sold on board.
The operator, which already works with Advantage Travel Centres. has now signed a partnership with The Global Travel Group to further boost its relationship with the trade.
Crusingexcursions.com managing director Simon Purchase said: "Trade sales were slow to take off but we have persevered."
He said agents can boost their income by selling these ancillary products, which are fully commissionable.
"This is useful at a time when cruiselines are reducing commission," he said.
Under the deal with Global, Cruisingexcursions.com will produce a 16-page ‘shore-trip’ sampler brochure for Global clients, with incentives for the booking to be made through the agent, rather than direct.
Launched with just 240 European destinations in June 2011 the company now has over 5,000 excursions at 600 ports worldwide.
Customers are fully protected with a non-porting money back guarantee, so if the ship doesn’t port then the customer receives a full refund.
In addition, in the unlikely event that a passenger doesn’t get back on board before the ship departs, and it’s not the passengers fault, then cruisingexcursions.com will transport the passenger free of charge to the next port of call.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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