Azamara Club Cruises to push for dedicated UK sales team

Azamara Club Cruises is to push for a dedicated UK sales team to help increase bookings from Britain and Ireland.

Vice-president sales and marketing Edie Bornstein said the UK sales team looks after all three Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines brands – Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Cruises.

She said: “They have done a great job, but our strategic plan is to have a greater focus on Azamara. In an ideal world we would like two people just to look after Azamara.”

Bornstein said she and Azamara president and chief executive Larry Pimental have meetings scheduled at Royal Caribbean’s UK head office in January to discuss the situation.

Azamara has just been rebranded Azamara Club Cruises and has a new eight-strong dedicated sales team in the US, as well as two additional sales people responsible for consortia and developing global charter business.

Pimental admitted there is very little awareness of Azamara generally, which operates two 694-passenger ships Azamara Journey and Azamara Quest, and becomes almost totally all-inclusive from April 2010.

He said: “Azamara came into existence in 2007, just before the global downturn, and as the company’s focus was on the Celebrity Cruises’ new Solstice-class ships and Royal Caribbean International’s Oasis of the Seas.

“It meant the sales people had other larger concerns, but now we have our own team in the US, which is 100% focused on Azamara.”