The sales manager for river cruise company Riviera Travel has spoken of his delight at the success of the company’s first year selling through agents.
Joseph Grimley, agency sales manager for Riviera, said the 30-year-old company had been trading through agents for the past year, having sold direct through newspaper advertising for 29 years.
Grimley said he believed agents enjoyed working with Riviera because the company does not discount its prices and agents won’t be undercut by someone else or lose their commission which he described as “competitive”.
He said that while their work through agents was still small compared to the sales made through newspapers, the agents’ sales were growing.
Speaking at the Clia Selling Cruise Convention in Southampton, he said: “The response from agents has been great because for years they have had customers coming in asking if they could book the cruise shown in the newspapers and they couldn’t. Now when they go in and ask that, they can.”
Grimley said they were looking to increase the number of sales through agents and in order to do so were offering training.
“It’s early days still,” he added.”But it is definitely growing which is really great to see.
“We recently joined Clia to further support agents. We are really happy to work with agents and we want to offer them whatever support they need. We have full training available if needed.”