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P&O Cruises has eyes on more new ships

P&O Cruises has pledged to build more capacity beyond the delivery of Iona and its sister ship with the UK market being “a long way from saturation”.

Speaking on Tuesday, Paul Ludlow, the line’s senior vice president, outlined how he planned to fill Iona, due for delivery in 2020, and said he was unconcerned about rival lines.

Choosing to deploy Iona in the Norwegian Fjords, scrapping the discretionary service charge and boosting the number of seven-night itineraries were all designed to encourage new-to-cruise passengers to sail with P&O Cruises, he said.

Asked how he planned to retain P&O Cruises’ current market share as other lines launched their own vessels, he said: “Build more ships. We obviously have another ship after Iona in 2022 and she will be a sister ship, so literally like buses when one comes another comes along right behind it.

“Frankly, we are invested in the UK market and we believe there is room for growth from the research that we do. We think that this market is a long way from saturation.”

He added that it was “inconsequential” what rival lines were doing and said he was only focused on the wider holiday market beyond the cruise sector.

Pre-registration for Iona’s sailings opened on Monday (September 3) and Ludlow said it 100% more passengers logged their interest in booking compared to when Britannia’s itineraries became available in 2014.

Although he would be drawn into exact numbers of passengers who pre-registered, Ludlow said the trade was “more prepared” about Iona than any other launch in the line’s history.

Alex Delamere-White, the line’s sales and distribution vice-president, added: “The most important thing for us is the level of engagement with agents.”

On last month’s decision to ditch the onboard discretionary service charge of £7, Ludlow said it was a move to “removing barriers” that would discourage new-to-cruise passengers from booking a P&O Cruises’ sailing.

“Paying a discretionary service charge was not necessarily something that people would be used to doing on their holiday,” he said. “We had enough feedback from enough people that they wanted it removed. We felt that this was the right decision.”

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